I 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Mrs, J. Morris Siemens
 
 THE 
 
 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER 
 
 (B&itton 
 VOL. I
 
 Of a Grandfather 
 
 BtlNG THE HISTORY OK SCOTLAND FROM 
 
 THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE CLOSE 
 OF THE REBELLION, 1745-46 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 F. W. FARRAR 
 
 ADAM & CHARLES BLACK 
 
 LONDON 
 
 1898 

 
 College 
 Library 
 
 LA 
 
 761 
 $43 
 
 v. 
 
 THE 
 
 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 I ESTEEM it a privilege to be permitted to say a few words 
 by way of introduction to Sir Walter Scott's Tales of a 
 Grandfather. There can be few men who would not gladly 
 take a part, however small arid humble, in calling fresh 
 attention to any work of so great and good a man, of 
 BO lovable and gifted a writer. 
 
 The first series of the Tales of a Grandfather was published 
 nearly sixty years ago, in December 1827. The severe 
 task of writing the Life of Napoleon had been finished on 
 9th June 1827, and the very next morning Scott records 
 in his diary that "the good thought came into his head 
 to write stories for little Johnnie Lockhart from the 
 history of Scotland." The suggestion came to him from 
 the popularity of Croker's Stories from the History of England, 
 but he determined not to write quite so simply as Croker 
 had done, because he felt a conviction that " both children 
 and the lower class of readers hate books which are written 
 down to their capacity, and love those that are composed 
 more for their betters and elders. I will," he says, " make, 
 if possible, a book that a child shall understand, yet a 
 man will feel some temptation to peruse should he chance 
 to take it up. It will require, however, a simplicity of 
 style not quite my own. The grand and interesting con-
 
 VI INTRODUCTION 
 
 sists in ideas, not in words. A clever thing of the kind 
 might have a race." 
 
 He was not disappointed in his expectation. The first 
 Talcs appeared early in December, and "their reception 
 was more rapturous than that of any of his works since 
 Iranhoe." "He had," says his biographer, "solved for the 
 first time the problem of narrating history so as at once to 
 excite and gratify the curiosity of youth, and please and 
 instruct the wisest of mature minds. The popularity of 
 the book has grown with every year that has since elapsed ; 
 it is equally prized in the library, the boudoir, the school- 
 room, and the nursery ; it is adopted as the happiest of 
 manuals, not only in Scotland, but wherever the English 
 tongue is spoken ; nay, it is to be seen in the hands of old 
 and young all over the civilised world, and has, I have little 
 doubt, extended the knowledge of Scottish history in 
 quarters where little or no interest had ever before been 
 awakened as to any other parts of that subject except 
 those immediately connected with Mary Stuart and the 
 Chevalier." 
 
 This estimate of the popularity of the Tales was 
 perfectly accurate when Lockhart wrote his admirable 
 biography. In more recent days they have been, so to 
 speak, "crowded out" by the vast multiplicity of new 
 publications. The present edition is due to the persuasion 
 that the work is far too valuable to be suffered to sink 
 into neglect. 
 
 The charm of the book lies partly in that indefinable 
 stamp of genius and distinction which it shares with all 
 the writings of Sir Walter Scott, and partly in its simplicity 
 and vividness. 
 
 The preface warns us that the Tales were begun in 
 a manner which was deemed most suitable to the com
 
 INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 prehension of a very little boy, but, as they advanced, 
 Sir Walter found that intelligent children can be inter- 
 ested in a style considerably more elevated, and one which 
 is capable of attracting the attention of older and more 
 critical readers. This was a belief which Sir Walter had 
 derived from his own experience. Speaking of the early 
 days in which he first became acquainted with the characters 
 of Shakspeare, he says, in his Autobiography, "I rather 
 suspect that children derive impulses of a powerful and 
 important kind in hearing things which they cannot entirely 
 comprehend ; and therefore that to write down, to children's 
 understanding is a mistake : set them on the scent, and 
 let them puzzle it out." But the writer never lost sight 
 of the fact that his first auditor was his young grandson, 
 and he tested the suitableness of his style and matter in 
 many a delightful ride in the woods of Abbotsford with 
 his " Hugh Littlejohn." The result was all that could be 
 desired. Every boy of healthy and unsophisticated tastes 
 will read this sketch of Scottish history with advantage 
 and delight. The early stories have all the legendary 
 charm which we find in Livy's heroic tales of the early 
 days of Rome, and, as in Arnold's History of Home, they are 
 written in a style which is sufficient to remind the reader 
 that he is still wandering in the misty borderlands which 
 separate fact from myth. As the book advances he will 
 emerge from those "realms of faerie," and will find him- 
 self moving amid scenes of an interest as thrilling as any 
 in romance, while at the same time he is face to face with 
 actual events and with the famous personage whose deeds 
 form the annals of 
 
 "An old and haughty nation proud in arms." 
 Sir Walter Scott had many of the highest qualifications
 
 Vlll INTRODUCTION 
 
 for the task which, like so many of his later tasks, was 
 undertaken in days of calamity and ruin. The labour 
 which fell upon him in the decline of his powers was severe 
 and anxious, but it had its own healing blessedness for a 
 brave and wounded spirit. The Tales were written with 
 ease and heartiness. He was moving in fancy among scenes 
 which he had loved from boyhood, and was inspired through- 
 out by the enthusiasm of a love for Scotland which could 
 not be surpassed in depth and intensity. The stories have 
 caught some of the glow and rush of feeling with which 
 they were first narrated to little Johnnie, as he galloped 
 with his grandfather under the summer trees, and were 
 afterwards dashed into writing in the library at Abbotsford. 
 Mr. Adolphus, the author of the letters to llcler, gives us a 
 very pleasant picture of Sir Walter as he utilised the long 
 wet hours of a rainy day by pressing forward in his task. 
 His nerves were at that time susceptible of acute excite- 
 ment from the slightest cause, so that the beauty of the 
 evening, or the sighing of the summer breeze, brought tears 
 though not unhappy tears into his eyes. He would 
 sit for hours at his desk while the "dashing trot" of his 
 pen over the paper seemed to vie with the pattering of 
 the rain in rapidity and continuance. He felt no sense of 
 disturbance when the merry cries of his grandchildren in 
 the hall woke a stifled growl of protest from Nimrod, or 
 Bear, or Spice, as they lay dosing at his feet. Few of his 
 books were written more easily and happily. "This 
 morning," he says, " was damp, dripping, and unpleasant, 
 so I even made a work of necessity, and set to the Tales 
 like a dragon. I murdered Maclellan of Bomby at the 
 Thrieve Castle ; stabbed the Black Douglas in the town of 
 Stirling ; astonished King James before Roxburgh ; and 
 stifled the Earl of Mar in his bath in the Canongate. A
 
 INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 wild world, my masters, this Scotland of ours must have 
 been. No fear of want of interest ; no lassitude in those 
 days for want of work 
 
 " For treason, d'ye see, 
 Was to them a dish of tea, 
 And murder bread and butter. " 
 
 A book written con amore is always likely to prove 
 interesting, and Sir Walter had been prepared for his 
 work by the varied training of a life. He came of an 
 ancient family of which many of the members had taken 
 an active and prominent part in the scenes which he 
 describes. He abounded in rare local information. His 
 tastes and pursuits had been in great measure formed by his 
 love for the old songs and tales which, in the happy days 
 of his early boyhood, formed the amusement of a retired 
 country family. When he came down to the later parts 
 of his narrative he could draw largely upon stories of 
 Border depredations which were still matters of recent 
 tradition, and in which Wat of Harden, Wight Willie of 
 Aikwood, Willie Fire -the -braes, and other moss-troopers 
 had lived their stormy lives. His memory, from which 
 names, dates, and other technicalities of history easily 
 escaped, was singularly tenacious when fascinated by 
 passages of poetry and Border-raid ballads. When writing 
 of the '45 he could rely on evidence derived from those 
 whose relatives had fallen at Culloden, and even from 
 those who could speak of the Chevalier from personal know- 
 ledge. Subjects of history and " auld lang syne " were then 
 discussed in Scotland with all the heat of the perfervidum 
 ingenium, and intimate friends would almost quarrel over 
 their different estimates of the gallant Montrose and the 
 "dark and politic" Argyle. A little print of "Bonnie 
 Prince Charlie" was one of the ornaments of Scott's
 
 X INTRODUCTION 
 
 student's " den " when he was living in his father's house 
 at Edinburgh. Over it was hooked to the wall the saucer 
 which once belonged to a cup which his father had flung 
 out of the window rather than taste from anything which 
 had been used by Mr Murray of Broughton, who, after being 
 the secretary of Prince Charles Stuart, had purchased his 
 own life by giving evidence against the noblest of his 
 adherents. From the lips of Sir Ralph Abercromby he 
 had heard the narrative of the journey which he had been 
 obliged to make to the retreat of Rob Roy ; and he had 
 collected various relics not only of the famous cateran, but 
 of all the chief families and heroes of Scottish story 
 including the sword presented by Charles I. to the great 
 Marquis of Montrose. When the Duke of Montrose play- 
 fully threatened to make a raid on Abbotsford and recover 
 this relic of his ancestor, "Your Grace is very welcome to 
 try," answered Sir Walter drily ; " but we're near Philip- 
 haugh yonder." 
 
 Sir Walter had another advantage from his thorough 
 knowledge of the scenes in which his narrative is placed. 
 He had wandered far and wide over the hills and moors of 
 Scotland in his youth, and had taken a journey into 
 Northumberland to make a close inspection of Flodden 
 Field. He had penetrated into the wild and inaccessible 
 district of Liddesdale " to examine the ruins of the famous 
 Castle of Hermitage, and to pick up some of the ancient 
 riding ballads among the descendants of the moss-troopers 
 who had followed the banner of the Douglases, when lords 
 of that grim and remote fortress." When writing The Lady 
 of the Lake, he " put to the test the practicability of riding 
 from the banks of Loch Vennachar to the Castle of Stirling 
 within the brief space which he had assigned to Fit/ 
 James's gray, Bayard." liven the imaginary fortresses of
 
 INTRODUCTION XI 
 
 his nobles had their actual prototypes. Tullyveolan in 
 Waverley was taken from Craighall in Perthshire, and 
 Tillietudlem in Old Mortality bore some resemblance to the 
 Castle of Craignethan on the Nethan, about three miles 
 from its junction with the Clyde. 
 
 His father was vexed with his rambles, but they enabled 
 him in after years to set off his narratives with a descriptive 
 accuracy which enables the reader to realise them almost 
 as vividly as the writer himself. No man knew so well as 
 he the ruined abbeys, and feudal castles, and historic 
 battlefields in which Scotland abounds. Melrose and 
 Dryburgh, Selkirk and Hermitage, and Dunnottar and 
 Lochleven, Bannockburn and Philiphaugh and Prestonpans, 
 were to him familiar scenes, and I suppose that there were 
 few places of great fame in the history of his country on 
 which at some time or other in his life he had not gazed 
 with the eye of a poet and the interest of an antiquary. 
 And meanwhile he was learning from his rambles more 
 valuable lessons than those of geography. He was gaining 
 an intimate acquaintance with the living manners of his 
 countrymen under conditions which belonged almost entirely 
 to the past, and which were already undergoing a process 
 of rapid obliteration. "He was makin' himsell a' the 
 time," says Mr. Shortread ; " but he didna ken maybe 
 what he was about till years had passed." 
 
 The chief charms of Scott's historical style are that it is 
 so picturesque, and so human. Another passage from his 
 Autobiography will illustrate both characteristics. "Show 
 me," he says, " an old castle or a field of battle, and I was 
 at home at once, filled it with its combatants in their 
 proper costume, and overwhelmed my hearers by the 
 enthusiasm of my description. In crossing Magus Moor, 
 near St. Andrews, the spirit moved me to give a picture of
 
 Xll INTRODUCTION 
 
 the assassination of the Archbishop of St. Andrews to some 
 fellow-travellers with whom I was accidentally associated, 
 and one of them, though well acquainted with the story, 
 protested that my narrative had frightened away his 
 night's sleep. I mention this to show the distinction 
 between a sense of the picturesque in action and in scenery. 
 If I have since been able in poetry to trace with some- 
 success the principles of the latter, it has always been with 
 reference to its general and leading features, or under some 
 alliance with moral feeling ; and even this proficiency has 
 cost me study." Let any one read the narrative of the 
 Battle of the Standard, or of the adventures of the Bruce 
 and the Black Douglas in the first series of Talcs, and he 
 will see in perfection the gift of vividness which is so 
 valuable to a historian. No intelligent boy who has read 
 those narratives can surely ever forget the impression 
 which they left upon his mind. 
 
 For the young, again, the moral and religious reflections 
 occasionally woven into the narrative will have a real 
 value. After observing that Edward I. may have deemed 
 himself excusable for the force and fraud which he hud 
 used in his conquests, because he believed that much good 
 would result from uniting the whole island of Britain 
 under one government, and thus preventing future war,-, 
 Scott pauses to tell his grandson that " God who sees into 
 our hearts will not bless those measures which are wicked 
 in themselves because they are used under a pretence of 
 bringing about that which is good ;" and that the evil 
 which Edward did, whatever may have been his motives. 
 did but inflame the hatred and violence of national anti- 
 pathy, and so retard the prospect of uniting the Scotch, the 
 Welsh, and the English into one people. When he records 
 the fact that many persons wept when, five hundred y<-:i;.-
 
 INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 after his interment, the wasted skull of Robert Bruce 
 was found in his grave at Dunfermline, he points out 
 that it would be far better to be forgotten altogether 
 than to be remembered for deeds of tyranny and oppression, 
 since 
 
 " Only the actions of the just 
 Smell sweet and blossom in the dust." 
 
 Once more, after narrating the assassination of Earl Douglas 
 by James II. at Stirling, he shows that the follies and 
 even the crimes of men are sometimes overruled by Divine 
 Providence for wise and gracious ends. Such remarks may 
 almost be resented as superfluous by ordinary readers, but 
 they sprang from the manly and spontaneous piety which 
 linked together the days of the great writer, and they have 
 doubtless helped many a youthful student to notice the 
 workings of God in history. This method of the inter- 
 pretation of human events had been learnt by Scott from the 
 Holy Scriptures, of which, from his earliest days, he had been 
 a constant student, and which, like Coleridge, he regarded 
 as the true manual for statesmen. He held as his clue to 
 the meaning of history even of a history so tragic and so 
 bloody as the early annals of Scotland the sentence with 
 which Orosius begins his summary of St. Augustine's City 
 of God " Divinti providentia agitur mundus et homo" He 
 would have said with the great Vico, that " History is a 
 civil theology of the Divine Providence;" with Bolingbroke 
 that it is "Philosophy teaching by examples;" with 
 Wilhelm von Humboldt, that " The history of the world is 
 not intelligible apart from a government of the world;" 
 and with Fichte, that " Every step in advance in history is 
 an inflowing of God;" "God alone makes history, but he 
 does this by the agency of man." 
 
 The reader of the Tales of a Grandfather will feel a
 
 XIV INTRODUCTION 
 
 unique source of interest in comparing the historic narrative 
 with the imaginative reproduction of the same events, and 
 with the delineation of the same great historic characters in 
 the novels. Exquisite as a poet, picturesque as a historian, 
 it is as a novelist that Scott has rendered his most splendid 
 services to all who speak the tongue of Shakspeare and 
 Milton. Next to the plays of Shakspeare there are no 
 writings of a single author in whose pages the reader will 
 find so rich and varied a source of elevating and innocent 
 delight The novelists who have written since Scott's day 
 can be counted by hundreds, and many of them have been 
 and are persons of high genius ; yet readers whose taste 
 and insight render them most competent to judge have 
 declared that the peculiar merits of Sir Walter have never 
 been surpassed, nor his pre-eminence in his own sphere of 
 work ever shaken. In reading the Tales of a Grandfather, 
 we can watch the artist at liis work. Robert the Bruce 
 meets us again in the Lord of the Isles ; Robert III. and 
 the Dukes of Rothesay and Albany in the Fair Maid of 
 Perth; James IV. in Marmion; James V. in the Lady of 
 the Lake ; Mary Queen of Scots in the Abbot; James V.I. 
 in the Fortunes of Nigel ; Charles II. in J Woodstock ; Graham 
 of Claverhouse and Monmouth in Old Mortality; Prince 
 Charlie in Waverley and RedgawMd. Thus the history and 
 the novels help each other. The stately figures of kings 
 and heroes which pass before us in the narrative becoming 
 living, breathing men, under the glamour of romance. We 
 see them act, we hear them speak ; we become familiar 
 with their dress, their personal appearance, their motives, 
 the surroundings in the midst of which they lived. On 
 the other hand, the freer details of the novels in the slight 
 matters in which they diverge from historic fact are readily 
 corrected by the authentic memorials of the history. Thus
 
 INTRODUCTION XV 
 
 the novels become more instructive, the history more 
 vividly interesting. 
 
 Nothing is more remarkable in Scott's writings than the 
 absence of unfair bias. He was himself a convinced and 
 steady Tory ; yet, as he never allowed his Toryism to affect 
 his private feelings of friendship, so he never allowed it to 
 interfere with his historic judgment. In very early days 
 he had formed a strong prejudice in favour of the Stuarts, 
 originally derived from the songs and tales of the Jacobites, 
 and deepened by the stories current in his family of the 
 cruelties and executions which followed the battle of 
 Culloden, and which had led him to detest "with more 
 than infant hatred" the name of "Butcher Cumberland." 
 Yet the fascinating halo of romance which magnifies and 
 illumines the person of Prince Charles Edward has not led 
 him to conceal the weakness and superficiality of his 
 character. He has invested the captivity of Queen Mary 
 at Lochleven with a pathetic dignity and interest, and he 
 evidently felt the magnetic influence which the brilliant 
 Queen has exercised even over the imagination of posterity. 
 Yet he does not conceal her unpardonable indiscretions ; 
 and there can be little doubt that in his historic judgment 
 he was convinced of her guilt even while he felt compassion 
 for her misfortunes. " Of his impartiality of judgment," 
 says Mr. Kuskin in Fars Clavigera, " I think it is enough, 
 once for all, to bid you observe, that, though himself by an 
 inherited disposition and accidental circumstances pre- 
 judiced in favour of the Stuart cause, the aristocratic 
 character, and the Catholic religion, the only perfectly 
 noble character in his first novel is that of a Hanoverian 
 colonel, and the most exquisitely finished and heroic 
 character in all his novels that of a Presbyterian milk- 
 maid." In the remarks which he makes in the Prefatory
 
 XVI INTRODUCTION 
 
 Letter to the third series of Tales, ho points out that no 
 political party is infallible, and that actions are not to be 
 approved or condemned in the gross because they were 
 committed by a particular faction ; but that each event is 
 to be judged of by its own circumstances, and the motives 
 of the actors. A friendly reviewer, who had given him 
 full credit for truthfulness and impartiality in dealing with 
 controverted points, had blamed him for suppressing 
 certain inferences which seemed too obvious not to be 
 discerned, and too stubborn to be refuted. Scott makes 
 the interesting reply that he has not indeed deserted his 
 banners though he has not unfurled them, but that he had 
 been convinced by years of thought that many of the 
 suggested conclusions might be challenged, and that others 
 were liable to much modification. Pie says that in any 
 case he would have thought it an unpardonable crime to 
 falsify in any controverted point the truth of history, and 
 that he regarded as a blot and stain upon our past annals, 
 and as an element of future peril, the tendency of party- 
 spirit to treat all its own adherents as demigods, and all 
 on the other side as fiends or fools. Many historians of 
 high fame might have been the better for weighing the 
 worth of those simple remarks. 
 
 Scott aimed, therefore, at presenting in the following 
 pages " a general and not uninteresting selection of facts, 
 which might at a future time form a secure foundation for 
 political sentiments," and which might lead his grandson 
 in later days to a closer and more accurate study of the 
 history of his country. But as far as accuracy is concerned 
 there is very little in the Tales of a Grandfather which it 
 would be necessary for a student to unlearn. Kespecting 
 some points indeed there have been more recent discoveries 
 which have brought to light new documents and new facts ;
 
 INTRODUCTION XV11 
 
 but even these do not necessitate any material change of 
 view. I have tested the flowing and interesting narrative 
 of the Tales by comparing them with the grave description 
 of the same events in the most recent and elaborate of the 
 histories of Scotland that by Mr. John Hill Burton. I do 
 not think that there is a single serious error which requires 
 correction. Even in telling so dark, so complicated, and 
 so mysterious a story as the Gowrie Conspiracy, Sir Walter 
 gave to his grandchild all the facts which were then 
 available for the understanding of an event, respecting 
 which the lost truth will, in all probability, remain 
 concealed till the end of time. About his historical 
 services, as about all that he ever did, Scott was extremely 
 modest In reply to a speech by Mr. Baillie of Jerviswood, 
 he said, " That in what he had done for Scotland as a writer, 
 he was no more entitled to the merits which had been 
 ascribed to him than the servant who scours the brasses 
 to the credit of having made them ; that he had perhaps 
 been a good housemaid to Scotland, and given the country 
 a 'rubbing up'; and in so doing might have deserved 
 some praise for assiduity, and that was all." But a grate- 
 ful posterity will give him far higher praise than that of 
 diligence. " Scott," says Mr. Ruskin, " is the Old Mortality, 
 not of tables of stone, but of the fleshly tables of the heart." 
 Since the Tales of a Grandfather were written there 
 have been many theories and philosophies of history. A 
 recent writer, Professor Flint, enumerates fourteen which 
 are French, and thirteen which are German in origin. The 
 study of history, like all other studies, tends to become 
 more technical, more elaborate, more exhaustive, more 
 scientific. "I do not, in the least, care to know what 
 happened in the past," says Mr. John Morley, " except as 
 it enables me to see my way more clearly through what 
 
 b
 
 XV1H INTRODUCTION 
 
 happens to-day." Another historian, Professor J. R. Seeley, 
 tells us that history is not meant merely " to gratify the 
 reader's curiosity about the past, but to modify his view of 
 the present, and his forecast of the future " ; and that "history 
 fades into mere literature when it loses sight of its relation 
 to practical politics." He seems almost to resent the endeav- 
 our to be interesting ; he warns the historians to " break 
 the drowsy spell of narrative," and to regard history as 
 a vehicle for political philosophy, the comparative study 
 of legal institutions, political economy, and international 
 law. Nevertheless, it may be safely asserted that the 
 older and simpler views of a historian's duty will not be 
 sacrificed to these exalted theories. There is no historian, 
 from the days of Herodotus down to those of Mr. Freeman, 
 whose popularity has not largely depended on the very 
 qualities which predominate in Sir Walter Scott namely, 
 a power of bright narration and an interest in facts in their 
 human aspect, on the principle of the old Latin poet 
 " Homo sum : humani nihil a me alienum puto." He would 
 have agreed with the views of history presented after his 
 days by Walter Savage Landor and by his countryman 
 Carlyle. Landor disapproved of our pushing valiant men 
 back in order to protrude ourselves with husky disputations. 
 " Show me," he says, " the generals and the statesmen who 
 stood foremost that I may bend to them in reverence ; tell 
 me their names that I may repeat them to my children. 
 Commerce in the harbour, the Arts in the light the} 7 love, 
 Philosophy in the shade ; place History on her rightful 
 throne, and at the side of her Eloquence and War." 
 Carlyle held similar views. " Better is it," he says, " that 
 mere earthly historians should lower such pretensions, and 
 aiming only at some picture of the thing acted which 
 picture itself will be but a poor approximation leave the in-
 
 INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 scrutable purport of them an acknowledged secret : " and 
 again, "Great men are the inspired texts of that divine 
 book of Revelation whereof a chapter is completed from 
 epoch to epoch, and by some named history." 1 
 
 Judged by these latter standards, the Tales of a Grand- 
 father fully deserve the title of History. Written in an 
 English style, at once singularly pure and singularly 
 picturesque ; honest in their treatment of facts ; fair in their 
 handling of disputed questions ; interpenetrated by a manly 
 and religious spirit ; glowing with patriotism ; abounding 
 with illustrations drawn from the stores of knowledge 
 which had been accumulated amid the very scenes in which 
 the main acts of the drama were enacted, it is impossible 
 that they should ever lose their human interest. The old 
 man who used to show the ruins of Melrose Abbey said of 
 Sir Walter Scott, " He'll stand and crack an' laugh wi' me 
 just like an auld wife and to think that of a man that 
 has such an awfu' knowledge of history I " Whether in the 
 modern sense Sir Walter's knowledge of history can be 
 called "awfu"' or not, he certainly rendered to the annals 
 of his own and other countries such services as have rarely 
 lain within the power of historians far more elaborately 
 erudite. He was himself legitimately proud of the fact 
 that there is not in all his volumes one stain of that base- 
 ness, or that ill-concealed delight in evil things, which has 
 tainted the pages of many another annalist. Neither his 
 own countrymen nor others will cease to do homage to 
 his genius, and if he may not be ranked with Thucydides 
 or Tacitus, he may take a very honoured place side by 
 side with Herodotus and Livy. 
 
 The work has been reprinted from the latest edition 
 
 1 Several of the above quotations on History are borrowed from a 
 bright essay in the second series of Obiter Dicta by Augustine Birrell.
 
 XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 published in the lifetime of Mr. Lockhart, and probably 
 under his immediate supervision. It is hoped that, in 
 this their new form, the Tales may have a long career of 
 usefulness and popularity. The numberless stories written 
 for the young are read by them with an eagerness which 
 never seems to tire. In these pages they will meet with 
 incidents as thrilling as any which they could find in the 
 most exciting work of fiction, but which have the incom- 
 parable additional interest of being true. They will thus 
 '.earn that History can be fascinating as well as instructive, 
 ind may perhaps be led by this discovery to wider and 
 more serious studies. 
 
 F. W. FAKRAK. 
 
 DEAN'S YARD, WESTMINSTER, 
 October 1, 1887.
 
 PEEFACE 
 
 THESE Tales were written in the interval of other avoca- 
 tions, for the use of the young relative to whom they are 
 inscribed. They embrace at the same time some attempt 
 at a general view of Scottish History, with a selection of 
 its more picturesque and prominent points. Having been 
 found useful to the young person for whom the compilation 
 was made, they are now given to the public, in the hope 
 that they may be a source of instruction for others. The 
 compilation, though professing to be only a collection of 
 Tales, or Narratives from the Scottish Chronicles, will 
 nevertheless be found to contain a general view of the 
 History of that country, from the period when it begins to 
 possess general interest. 
 
 The Author may here mention that, after commencing 
 his task in a manner obvious to the most limited capacity, 
 of which the Tale of Macbeth is an example, he was led to 
 take a different view of the subject, by finding that a style 
 considerably more elevated was more interesting to his 
 juvenile reader. There is no harm, but, on the contrary, 
 there is benefit, in presenting a child with ideas somewhat 
 beyond his easy and immediate comprehension. The 
 difficulties thus offered, if not too great or too frequent, 
 stimulate curiosity and encourage exertion. 
 
 The Author has carefully revised the present (second) 
 edition, corrected several errors and inaccuracies, and made
 
 XX11 PREFACE 
 
 numerous and large additions, so as to bring the little 
 book nearer its proper character, of an abridged History 
 of Scotland, for the use of young persons.* The reigns of 
 Malcolm Canmore, and of his immediate successors, have 
 been given in some detail, instead of passing at oiice from 
 the defeat and death of Macbeth to the wars of Bruce and 
 Baliol. 
 
 It is the Author's purpose to carry this little work down 
 to the period of 1748, when the two sister nations became 
 blended together in manners as well as by political ties. 
 The task will afford an opportunity to show the slow and 
 interrupted progress by which England and Scotland, 
 ostensibly united by the accession of James the First of 
 England, gradually approximated to each other, until the 
 last shades of national difference may be almost said to 
 have disappeared. 
 
 W. S. 
 
 ABBOTSFOBD, Feb. 1823. 
 
 * [Mr. J. G. LOCKHART, in his Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, 
 says : "The Tales of a Grandfather appeared early in December 1827, 
 and their reception was more rapturous than any one of Sir "Walter's 
 works since Ivanhoe. He had solved for the first time the problem of 
 narrating history so as at once to excite and gratify the curiosity of 
 youth, and please and instruct the wisest of mature minds. The 
 popularity of the book has grown with every year that has since elapsed ; 
 it is equally prized in the library, the boudoir, the schoolroom, and the 
 nursery ; it is adopted as the happiest of manuals, not only in Scotland, 
 but wherever the English tongue is spoken ; nay, it is to be seen in 
 the hands of old and young all over the civilised world, and has, I 
 have little doubt, extended the knowledge of Scottish history in 
 quarters where little or no interest had ever before been auakened. "]
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 To HUGH LITTLEJOHN, ESQ. 
 
 MUCH EESPECTED SIR, 
 
 ALTHOUGH I have not yet arrived at the reverend period 
 of life which may put me once more on a level with yours, 
 yet I find myself already better pleased to seek an auditor of 
 your age, who is usually contented to hear the same story 
 repeated twenty times over, than to attempt instructing 
 the more critical hearers among my contemporaries, who 
 are apt to object to any tale twice told. It is, therefore, 
 probable that had we been to remain near to each other I 
 should have repeated to you many of the stories contained 
 in this book more than once. But, since that has ceased 
 to be the case, I have nothing remaining save to put them 
 in this shape, in which you may read them as often as you 
 have a mind. 
 
 I have in this little book imitated one with which you 
 are well acquainted, I mean the collection of Stories 
 taken from the History of England, and which has been so 
 deservedly popular. 1 
 
 As you, however, happen to be a person of quick study, 
 
 1 Stories from the History of England for Children, by the Right 
 Hon. J. W. Croker.
 
 XXIV DEDICATION 
 
 and great penetration, it is my purpose to write a little 
 work, which may not only be useful to you at the age 
 of five or six years, which I think may be about your 
 worship's present period of life, but which may not be 
 beneath your attention, either for style or matter, at the 
 graver term of eight, or even ten years old. When, 
 therefore, you find anything a little too hard for you to 
 understand at this moment, you must consider that you 
 will be better able to make out the sense a year or two 
 afterwards ; or perhaps you may make a great exertion, 
 and get at the meaning, just as you might contrive to 
 reach something placed upon a high shelf by standing on 
 your tiptoes, instead of waiting till you grow a little taller. 
 Or who knows but Papa will give you some assistance, 
 and that will be the same as if he set you upon a stool 
 that you might reach down what you wanted. 
 
 And so farewell, my dear Hugh Littlejohn. 1 If you 
 should grow wiser and better from what you read in this 
 book, it will give great pleasure to your very affectionate 
 
 GRANDFATHER. 
 
 ARBOTSFORD, December 1827. 
 
 1 [John Hugh Lockhart, nicknamed as above by his grandfather, 
 was the son of J. G. Lockhart and Sophia, eldest daughter of Sir 
 Walter Scott. John Hugh was born in 1821, and, after a precarious 
 existence, died in 1831.]
 
 TALES OF A GBANDFATHEK 
 
 HISTOKY OF SCOTLAND 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 How Scotland and England came to be separate Kingdoms 
 
 ENGLAND is the southern, and Scotland is the northern part 
 of the celebrated island called Great Britain. England is 
 greatly larger than Scotland, and the land is much richer, and 
 produces better crops. There are also a great many more men 
 in England, and both the gentlemen and the country people 
 are more wealthy, and have better food and clothing there than 
 in Scotland. The towns, also, are much more numerous, and 
 more populous. 
 
 Scotland, on the contrary, is full of hills, and huge moors 
 and wildernesses, which bear no corn, and afford but little food 
 for flocks of sheep or herds of cattle. But the level ground 
 that lies along the great rivers is more fertile, and produces 
 good crops. The natives of Scotland are accustomed to live 
 more hardily in general than those of England. The cities and 
 towns are fewer, smaller, and less full of inhabitants than in 
 England. But as Scotland possesses great quarries of stone, 
 the houses are commonly built of that material, which is more 
 lasting, and has a grander effect to the eye than the bricks used 
 in England. 
 
 Now, as these two nations live in the different ends of the 
 
 same island, and are separated by large and stormy seas from 
 
 all other parts of the world, it seems natural that they should 
 
 have been friendly to each other, and that they should have 
 
 i 1
 
 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. I 
 
 lived as one people under the same government. Accordingly, 
 above two hundred years ago, the King of Scotland becoming 
 King of England, as I shall tell you in another part of this 
 book, the two nations have ever since then been joined in one 
 great kingdom, which is called Great Britain. 
 
 But, before this happy union of England and Scotland, there 
 were many long, cruel, and bloody wars, between the two na- 
 tions ; and, far from helping or assisting each other, as became 
 good neighbours and friends, they did each other all the harm 
 and injury that they possibly could, by invading each other's 
 territories, killing their subjects, burning their towns, and taking 
 their wives and children prisoners. This lasted for many many 
 hundred years ; and I am about to tell you the reason why the 
 land was so divided. 
 
 A long time since, eighteen hundred years ago and more, 
 there was a brave and warlike people, called the Romans, who 
 undertook to conquer the whole world, and subdue all countries, 
 so as to make their own city of Rome the head of all the nations 
 upon the face of the earth. And after conquering far and near, 
 at last they came to Britain, and made a great war upon the 
 inhabitants, called the British, or Britons, whom they found 
 living there. The Romans, who were a very brave people, and 
 well armed, beat the British, and took possession of almost all 
 the flat part of the island, which is now called England, and 
 also of a part of the south of Scotland. But they could not 
 make their way into the high northern mountains of Scotland, 
 where they could hardly get anything to feed their soldiers, 
 and where they met with much opposition from the inhabit- 
 ants. The Romans, therefore, gave up all attempts to subdue 
 this impenetrable country, and resolved to remain satisfied with 
 that level ground, of which they had already possessed them- 
 selves. 1 
 
 Then the wild people of Scotland, whom the Romans had 
 not been able to subdue, began to come down from their moun- 
 tains, and make inroads upon that part of the country which 
 had been conquered by the Romans. 
 
 These people of the northern parts of Scotland were not one 
 nation, but divided in two, called the Scots and the Picts ; they 
 
 1 The first invasion of England by the Romans, under Julius Caesar, 
 was in the 55th year before the Christian Era ; that of Scotland, under 
 Agricola, A.D. 40,
 
 CHAP. I ROMAN INVASION 
 
 often fought against each other, but they always joined together 
 against the Romans, and the Britons who had been subdued 
 by them. At length, the Romans thought they would prevent 
 these Picts and Scots from coming into the southern part of 
 Britain, and laying it waste. For this purpose, they built a 
 very long wall between the one side of the island and the other, 
 so that none of the Scots or Picts should come into the country 
 on the south side of the wall ; and they made towers on the 
 wall, and camps, with soldiers, from place to place ; so that, at 
 the least alarm, the soldiers might hasten to defend any part of 
 the wall which was attacked. This first Roman wall was 
 built 1 between the two great Firths of the Clyde and the Forth, 
 just where the island of Britain is at the narrowest, and some 
 parts of it are to be seen at this day. You can see it on the 
 map. 
 
 This wall defended the Britons for a time, and the Scots and 
 Picts were shut out from the fine rich land, and enclosed within 
 their own mountains. But they were very much displeased 
 with this, and assembled in great numbers, and climbed over 
 the wall, in spite of all that the Romans could do to oppose 
 them. A man, named Grahame, is said to have been the first 
 soldier who got over ; and the common people still call the re- 
 mains of the wall Grahame's dike. 
 
 Now the Romans, finding that this first wall could not keep 
 out the barbarians (for so they termed the Picts and the Scots), 
 thought they would give up a large portion of the country to 
 them, and perhaps it might make them quiet. So they built a 
 new wall, and a much stronger one than the first, sixty miles 
 farther back from the Picts and Scots. 2 Yet the barbarians 
 made as many furious attacks to get over this second wall, as 
 ever they had done to break through the former. But the 
 Roman soldiers defended the second wall so well, that the Scots 
 and Picts could not break through it ; though they often came 
 round the end of the wall by sea, in boats made of ox hides, 
 stretched upon hoops, landed on the other side, and did very 
 much mischief. In the meantime, the poor Britons led a very 
 
 1 During the invasion of Agricola, A.D. 81 and rebuilt by Antoninus in 
 140. 
 
 3 The wall of Adrian, built A.D. 120. It extended quite across the 
 island, from the river Tyne at Newcastle to the Solway Firth at Car- 
 lisK
 
 4 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. I 
 
 unhappy life ; for the Romans, when they subdued their country, 
 having taken away all their arms, they lost the habit of using 
 them, or of defending themselves, and trusted entirely to the 
 protection of their conquerors. 
 
 But at this time great quarrels, and confusions, and civil 
 wars, took place at Rome. So the Roman Emperor sent to 
 the soldiers whom he had maintained in Britain, and ordered 
 that they should immediately return to their own country, and 
 leave the Britons to defend their wall as well as they could, 
 against their unruly and warlike neighbours the Picts and Scots. 
 The Roman soldiers were very sorry for the poor Britons, but 
 they could do no more to help them than by repairing the wall 
 of defence. They therefore built it all up, and made it as 
 if it were quite new. And then they took to their ships, and 
 left the island. 1 
 
 After the departure of the Romans, the Britons were quite 
 unable to protect the wall against the barbarians ; for, since 
 their conquest by the Romans, they had become a weak and 
 cowardly people. So the Picts and Scots broke through the 
 wall at several points, wasted and destroyed the country, and 
 took away the boys and girls to be slaves, seized upon the 
 sheep, and upon the cattle, and burnt the houses, and did the 
 inhabitants every sort of mischief. Thus at last the Britons, 
 finding themselves no longer able to resist these barbarous 
 people, invited into Britain to their assistance a number of men 
 from the north of Germany who were called Anglo-Saxons. 
 Now, these were a very brave and warlike people, and they 
 came in their ships from Germany, and landed in the south 
 part of Britain, and helped the Britons to fight with the Scots 
 and Picts [A.D. 449], and drove these nations again into the 
 hills and fastnesses of their own country, to the north of the 
 wall which the Romans built ; and they were never afterwards 
 so troublesome to their neighbours. 
 
 But the Britons were not much the better for the defeat of 
 their northern enemies ; for the Saxons, when they had come 
 into Britain, and saw what a beautiful rich country it was, and 
 that the people were not able to defend it, resolved to take the 
 land to themselves, and to make the Britons their slaves and 
 servants. The Britons were very unwilling to have their 
 
 1 After the partial occupation of Great Britain by the Romans during 
 a period of 500 years, they finally abdicated the island A.D. 446.
 
 CHAP. I THE WELSH AND ANGLO-SAXONS 5 
 
 country taken from them by the people they had called in to 
 help them, and so strove to oppose them ; but the Saxons 
 were stronger and more warlike than they, and defeated them 
 so often, that they at last got possession of all the level and flat 
 land in the south part of Britain. However, the bravest part 
 of the Britons fled into a very hilly part of the country, which 
 is called Wales, and there they defended themselves against the 
 Saxons for a great many years ; and their descendants still 
 speak the ancient British language, called Welsh. In the 
 meantime, the Anglo-Saxons spread themselves throughout 
 all the south part of Britain, and the name of the country was 
 changed, and it was no longer called Britain, but England; 
 which means the land of the Anglo-Saxons who had con- 
 quered it. 
 
 While the Saxons and Britons were thus fighting together, 
 the Scots and the Picts, after they had been driven back behind 
 the Roman wall, also quarrelled and fought between themselves ; 
 and at last, after a great many battles, the Scots got completely 
 the better of the Picts. The common people say that the Scots 
 destroyed them entirely; but I think it is not likely that 
 they could kill such great numbers of people. Yet it is certain 
 they must have slain many, and driven others out of the country, 
 and made the rest their servants and slaves ; at least the Picts 
 were never heard of in history after these great defeats, and the 
 Scots gave their own name to the north part of Britain, as the 
 Angles, or Anglo-Saxons, did to the south part ; and so came 
 the name of Scotland, the land of the Scots ; and England, the 
 land of the English. The two kingdoms were divided from 
 each other, on the east by the river Tweed ; then, as you pro- 
 ceed westward, by a great range of hills and wildernesses, and 
 at length by a branch of the sea called the Firth of Solway. 
 The division is not very far from the old Roman wall. The 
 wall itself has been long suffered to go to ruins ; but, as I have 
 already said, there are some parts of it still standing, and it is 
 curious to see how it runs as straight as an arrow over high 
 hills, and through great bogs and morasses. 
 
 You see, therefore, that Britain was divided between three 
 different nations, who were enemies to each other. There was 
 England, which was the richest and best part of the island, and 
 which was inhabited by the English. Then there was Scotland, 
 full of hills and great lakes, and difficult and dangerous preci-
 
 6 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. I 
 
 pices, wild heaths, and great morasses. This country was 
 inhabited by the Scots, or Scottish men. And there was Wales, 
 also a very wild and mountainous country, whither the remains 
 of the ancient Britons had fled, to obtain safety from the 
 Saxons. 
 
 The Welsh defended their country for a long time, and lived 
 under their own government and laws ; yet the English got 
 possession of it at last. But they were not able to become 
 masters of Scotland, though they tried it frequently. The two 
 countries were under different kings, who fought together very 
 often and very desperately ; and thus you see the reason why 
 England and Scotland, though making parts of the same island, 
 were for a long time great enemies to each other. Papa will 
 show you the two countries on the map, and you must take 
 notice that Scotland is all full of hills, and wild moors covered 
 with heather. But now I think upon it, Mr. Hugh Littlejohn 
 is a traveller, and has seen Scotland, and England too, with 
 his own eyes. However, it will do no harm to look at the 
 map. 
 
 The English are very fond of their fine country ; they call it 
 " Old England," and " Merry England," and think it the finest 
 land that the sun shines upon. And the Scots are also very 
 proud of their own country, with its great lakes and mountains; 
 and, in the old language of the country, they call it " The land 
 of the lakes and mountains ; and of the brave men ; " and often, 
 also, " The Land of Cakes," because the people live a good deal 
 upon cakes made of oatmeal, instead of wheaten bread. But 
 both England and Scotland are now parts of the same kingdom, 
 and there is no use in asking which is the best country, or has 
 the bravest men. 1 
 
 This is but a dull chapter, Mr. Littlejohn. But as we are 
 
 1 " From the time of Kenneth MacAlpine to that of Macbeth that is, 
 from 841 to 1040, a space of about two centuries, we have a line of fifteen 
 kings of Scots, of whom it is easy to perceive that, in spite of the absurd 
 prejudices concerning the inferiority of the Gaelic race, they sustained 
 successfully the sceptre of Kenneth, and, by repeated battles both with the 
 English and the Danes, not only repelled the attacks of their neighbours, 
 but consolidated the strength of their kingdom, gradually modelling an 
 association of barbarous, and in part wandering tribes, into the consistence 
 of a regular state. It is true that, through the mist of years, these scep- 
 tered shades are seen but indistinctly and dimly ; yet, as we catch a 
 glimpse, we see them occupied always in battle, and often in conquest." 
 Miscellaneous Prose Wo-rks.
 
 1033-1056 MACBETH 7 
 
 to tell many stories about Scotland and England, it is best to 
 learn what sort of countries we are talking about. The next 
 story shall be more entertaining. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The Story of Macbeth 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Canute, Harold, Hardi- 
 Canute, Edward the Confessor. France : Henry I. 
 
 10331056 
 
 SOON after the Scots and Picts had become one people, as I 
 told you before, there was a King of Scotland called Duncan, a 
 very good old man. He had two sons ; one was called Mal- 
 colm, and the other Donaldbane. But King Duncan was too 
 old to lead out his army to battle, and his sons were too young 
 to help him. 
 
 At this time Scotland, and indeed France and England, and 
 all the other countries of Europe, were much harassed by the 
 Danes. These were a very fierce, warlike people, who sailed 
 from one place to another, and landed their armies on the coast, 
 burning and destroying everything wherever they came. They 
 were heathens, and did not believe in the Bible, but thought of 
 nothing but battle and slaughter, and making plunder. When 
 they came to countries where the inhabitants were cowardly, 
 they took possession of the land, as I told you the Saxons took 
 possession of Britain. At other times, they landed with their 
 soldiers, took what spoil they could find, burned the houses, 
 and then got on board, hoisted sails, and away again. They 
 did so much mischief, that people put up prayers to God in the 
 churches, to deliver them from the rage of the Danes. 
 
 Now, it happened in King Duncan's time, that a great fleet 
 of these Danes came to Scotland and landed their men in Fife, 1 
 and threatened to take possession of that province. So a 
 numerous Scottish army was levied to go to fight against them. 
 The King, as I told you, was too old to command his army, 
 and his sons were too young. He therefore sent out one of hia 
 
 1 Under the command of Sueno, King of Denmark and Norway.
 
 8 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. IJ 
 
 near relations, who was called Macbeth ; lie was sou of Finel, 
 who was Thane, as it was called, of Glainmis. The governors 
 of provinces were at that time, in Scotland, called thanes ; they 
 were afterwards termed earls. 
 
 This Macbeth, who was a brave soldier, put himself at the 
 head of the Scottish army, and marched against the Danes. 
 And he carried with him a relation of his own, called Banquo, 
 who was Thane of Lochaber, and was also a very brave man. 
 So there was a great battle fought between the Danes and the 
 Scots ; and Macbeth and Banquo, the Scottish generals, defeated 
 the Danes, and drove them back to their ships, leaving a great 
 many of their soldiers both killed and wounded. Then Mac- 
 beth and his army marched back to a town in the north of 
 Scotland, called Torres, rejoicing on account of their victory. 
 
 Now there lived at this time three old women in the town 
 of Forres, whom people looked upon as witches, and supposed 
 they could tell what was to come to pass. Nobody would 
 believe such folly nowadays, except low and ignorant creatures, 
 such as those who consult gipsies in order to have their fortunes 
 told ; but in those early times the people were much more 
 ignorant, and even great men, like Macbeth, believed that such 
 persons as these witches of Forres could tell what was to come 
 to pass afterwards, and listen to the nonsense they told them, 
 as if the old women had really been prophetesses. The old 
 women saw that they were respected and feared, so that they 
 were tempted to impose upon people, by pretending to tell 
 what was to happen to them; and they got presents for 
 doing BO. 
 
 So the three old women went and stood by the wayside, in 
 a great moor or heath near Forres, and waited till Macbeth 
 came up. And then, stepping before him as he was marching 
 at the head of his soldiers, the first woman said, "All hail, 
 Macbeth hail to thee, Thane of Glammis." The second said, 
 " All hail, Macbeth hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor." Then the 
 third, wishing to pay him a higher compliment than the other 
 two, said, "All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be King of Scotland." 
 Macbeth was very much surprised to hear them give him these 
 titles ; and while he was wondering what they could mean, 
 Banquo stepped forward, and asked them whether they had 
 nothing to tell about him as well as about Macbeth. And they 
 said that he should not be so great as Macbeth, but that,
 
 1033-1056 MACBETH 
 
 though he himself should never be a king, yet his children 
 should succeed to the throne of Scotland, and be kings for a 
 great number of years. 
 
 Before Macbeth recovered from his surprise, there came a 
 messenger to tell him that his father was dead, so that he was 
 become Thane of Glammis by inheritance. And there came a 
 second messenger, from the King, to thank Macbeth for the 
 great victory over the Danes, and tell him that the Thane of 
 Cawdor had rebelled agaiust the King, and that the King had 
 taken his office from him, and had sent to make Macbeth Thane 
 of Cawdor as well as of Glammis. Thus the two first old 
 women seemed to be right in giving him those two titles. I 
 daresay they knew something of the death of Macbeth's father, 
 and that the government of Cawdor was intended for Macbeth, 
 though he had not heard of it. 
 
 However, Macbeth, seeing a part of their words come to be 
 true, began to think how he was to bring the rest to pass, and 
 make himself king, as well as Thane of Glammis and Cawdor. 
 Now Macbeth had a wife, who was a very ambitious, wicked 
 woman, and when she found out that her husband thought of 
 raising himself up to be King of Scotland, she encouraged him 
 in his wicked purpose, by all the means in her power, and per- 
 suaded him that the only way to get possession of the crown 
 was to kill the good old King, Duncan. Macbeth was very 
 unwilling to commit so great a crime, for he knew what a good 
 sovereign Duncan had been; and he recollected that he was 
 his relation, and had been always very kind to him, and had 
 entrusted him with the command of his army, and had bestowed 
 on him the government or thanedom of Cawdor. But his wife 
 continued telling him what a foolish, cowardly thing it was in 
 him not to take the opportunity of making himself King, when 
 it was in his power to gain what the witches promised him. 
 So the wicked advice of his wife, and the prophecy of these 
 wretched old women, at last brought Macbeth to think of 
 murdering his King and his friend. The way in which he 
 accomplished his crime, made it still more abominable. 
 
 Macbeth invited Duncan to come to visit him, at a great 
 castle near Inverness ; and the good King, who had no 
 suspicions of his kinsman, accepted the invitation very 
 willingly. Macbeth and his lady received the King and all 
 his retinue with much appearance of joy, and made a great
 
 10 TALES OP A GRANDFATHER CHAP. II 
 
 feast, as a subject would do to make his King welcome. 
 About the middle of the night, the King desired to go to his 
 apartment, and Macbeth conducted him to a fine room which 
 had been prepared for him. Now, it was the custom, in those 
 barbarous times, that wherever the King slept, two armed 
 men slept in the same chamber, in order to defend his person 
 in case he should be attacked by any one during the night. 
 But the wicked Lady Macbeth had made these two watchmen 
 drink a great deal of wine, and had besides put some drugs 
 into the liquor ; so that when they went to the King's apart- 
 ment they both fell asleep, and slept so soundly, that nothing 
 could awaken them. 
 
 Then the cruel Macbeth came into King Duncan's bedroom 
 about two in the morning. It was a terrible stormy night ; 
 but the noise of the wind and of the thunder did not awaken 
 the King, for he was old, and weary with his journey ; neither 
 could it awaken the two sentinels, who were stupefied with the 
 liquor and the drugs they had swallowed. They all slept 
 soundly. So Macbeth having come into the room, and stepped 
 gently over the floor, he took the two dirks which belonged to 
 the sentinels, and stabbed poor old King Duncan to the heart, 
 and that so effectually, that he died without giving even a 
 groan. Then Macbeth put the bloody daggers into the hands 
 of the sentinels, and daubed their faces over with blood, that 
 it might appear as if they had committed the murder. Mac- 
 beth was, however, greatly frightened at what he had done, 
 but his wife made him wash his hands and go to bed. 
 
 Early in the morning, the nobles and gentlemen who 
 attended on the King assembled in the great hall of the castle, 
 and there they began to talk of what a dreadful storm it had 
 been the night before. But Macbeth could scarcely understand 
 what they said, for he was thinking on something much worse 
 and more frightful than the storm, and was wondering what 
 would be said when they heard of the murder. They waited 
 for some time, but finding the King did not come from his 
 apartment, one of the noblemen went to see whether he was 
 well or not. But when he came into the room, he found poor 
 King Duncan lying stiff, and cold, and bloody, and the two 
 sentinels both fast asleep, with their dirks or daggers covered 
 with blood. As soon as the Scottish nobles saw this terrible 
 sight, they were greatly astonished and enraged ; and Macbeth
 
 1033-1056 MACBETH 11 
 
 made believe as if he were more enraged than any of them, 
 and, drawing his sword, before any one could prevent him, he 
 killed the two attendants of the King who slept in the bed- 
 chamber, pretending to think they had been guilty of murdering 
 King Duncan. 
 
 When Malcolm and Donaldbane, the two sons of the good 
 King, saw their father slain in this strange manner within 
 Macbeth's castle, they became afraid that they might be put 
 to death likewise, and fled away out of Scotland ; for, notwith- 
 standing all the excuses which he could make, they still 
 believed that Macbeth had killed their father. Donaldbane 
 fled into some distant islands, but Malcolm, the eldest son of 
 Duncan, went to the Court of England, where he begged for 
 assistance from the English King, to place him on the throne 
 of Scotland as his father's successor. 
 
 In the meantime, Macbeth took possession of the kingdom 
 of Scotland, and thus all his wicked wishes seemed to be ful- 
 filled. But he was not happy. He began to reflect how 
 wicked he had been in killing his friend and benefactor, and 
 how some other person, as ambitious as he was himself, might 
 do the same thing to him. He remembered, too, that the old 
 women had said, that the children of Banquo should succeed 
 to the throne after his death, and therefore he concluded that 
 Bauquo might be tempted to conspire against him, as he had 
 himself done against King Duncan. The wicked always think 
 other people are as bad as themselves. In order to prevent 
 this supposed danger, Macbeth hired ruffians to watch in a 
 wood, where Banquo and his son Fleance sometimes used to 
 walk in the evening, with instructions to attack them, and kill 
 both father and son. The villains did as they were ordered by 
 Macbeth ; but while they were killing Banquo, the boy Fleance 
 made his escape from their wicked hands, and fled from Scot- 
 land into Wales. And it is said, that, long afterwards, his 
 children came to possess the Scottish crown. 1 
 
 Macbeth was not the more happy that he had slain his 
 brave friend and cousin, Bauquo. He knew that men began 
 to suspect the wicked deeds which he had done, and he was 
 constantly afraid that some one would put him to death as he 
 had done his old sovereign, or that Malcolm would obtain 
 assistance from the King of England, and come to make war 
 1 Stewart family.
 
 12 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. II 
 
 against him, and take from him the Scottish kingdom. So, in 
 this great perplexity of mind, he thought he would go to the 
 old women, whose words had first put into his mind the desire 
 of becoming a king. It is to be supposed that he offered them 
 presents, and that they were cunning enough to study how to 
 give him some answer, which should make him continue in the 
 belief that they could prophesy what was to happen in future 
 times. So they answered him that he should not be conquered, 
 or lose the crown of Scotland, until a great forest, called 
 Birnam Wood, should come to attack a strong castle situated 
 on a high hill called Dunsinane, 1 in which castle Macbeth 
 commonly resided. Now, the hill of Dunsiuane is upon the 
 one side of a great valley, and the forest of Birnam is upon the 
 other. There are twelve miles' distance betwixt them ; and 
 besides that, Macbeth thought it was impossible that the trees 
 could ever come to the assault of the castle. He therefore 
 resolved to fortify his castle on the hill of Dunsinane very 
 strongly, as being a place in which he would always be sure to 
 be safe. For this purpose he caused all his great nobility and 
 thanes to send in stones, and wood, and other things wanted 
 in building, and to drag them with oxen up to the top of the 
 steep hill where he was building the castle. 
 
 Now, among other nobles who were obliged to send oxen, 
 and horses, and materials to this laborious work, was one called 
 Macduff, the Thane of Fife. Macbeth was afraid of this Thane, 
 for he was very powerful, and was accounted both brave and 
 wise ; and Macbeth thought he would most probably join with 
 Prince Malcolm, if ever he should come from England with an 
 army. The King, therefore, had a private hatred against the 
 Thane of Fife, which he kept concealed from all men, until he 
 should have some opportunity of putting him to death, as he 
 had done Duncan and Banquo. Macduff, on his part, kept 
 upon his guard, and went to the King's court as seldom as he 
 could, thinking himself never safe unless while in his own castle 
 of Kennoway, which is on the coast of Fife, near to the mouth 
 of the Firth of Forth. 
 
 It happened, however, that the King had summoned several 
 
 of his nobles, and Macduff, the Thane of Fife, amongst others, 
 
 to attend him at his new castle of Dunsinane ; and they were 
 
 all obliged to come none dared stay behind. Now, the King 
 
 1 In Scotland pronounced Dunsinnan.
 
 1033-1056 MACBETH 13 
 
 was to give the nobles a great entertainment, and preparations 
 were made for it. In the meantime, Macbeth rode out with a 
 few attendants, to see the oxen drag the wood and the stones 
 up the hill, for enlarging and strengthening the castle. So they 
 saw most of the oxen trudging up the hill with great difficulty 
 (for the ascent is very steep), and the burdens were heavy, and 
 the weather was extremely hot. At length Macbeth saw a pair 
 of oxen so tired that they could go no farther up the hill, but 
 fell down under their load. Then the King was very angry, 
 and demanded to know who it was among his Thanes that had 
 sent oxen so weak and so unfit for labour, when he had so much 
 work for them to do. Some one replied that the oxen belonged 
 to Macduff, the Thane of Fife. "Then," said the King, in 
 great anger, "since the Thane of Fife sends such worthless 
 cattle as these to do my labour, I will put his own neck into 
 the yoke, and make him drag the burdens himself." 
 
 There was a friend of Macduff who heard these angry expres- 
 sions of the King, and hastened to communicate them to the 
 Thane of Fife, who was walking in the hall of the King's castle 
 while dinner was preparing. The instant that Macduff heard 
 what the King had said, he knew he had no time to lose in 
 making his escape ; for whenever Macbeth threatened to do 
 mischief to any one, he was sure to keep his word. 
 
 So Macduff snatched up from the table a loaf of bread, called 
 for his horses and his servants, and was galloping back to his 
 own province of Fife, before Macbeth and the rest of the no- 
 bility were returned to the castle. The first question which 
 the King asked was, what had become of Macduff? and being 
 informed that he had fled from Dunsiuane, he ordered a body of 
 his guards to attend him, and mounted on horseback himself to 
 pursue the Thane, with the purpose of putting him to death. 
 
 Macduff, in the meantime, fled as fast as horses' feet could 
 carry him ; but he was so ill provided with money for his ex- 
 penses, that, when he came to the great ferry over the river 
 Tay, he had nothing to give to the boatmen who took him 
 across, excepting the loaf of bread which he had taken from the 
 King's table. The place was called, for a long time afterwards, 
 the Ferry of the Loaf. 
 
 When Macduff got into his province of Fife, which is on the 
 other side of the Tay, he rode on faster than before, towards his 
 own castle of Kennoway, which, as I told you, stands close by
 
 14 TALES OF A GRANDFATIIEK CHAP. IJ 
 
 the seaside ; and when he reached it, the King and his guards 
 were not far behind him. Macduff ordered his wife to shut the 
 gates of the castle, draw up the drawbridge, and on no account 
 to permit the King or any of his soldiers to enter. In the mean- 
 time, he went to the small harbour belonging to the castle, and 
 caused a ship which was lying there to be fitted out for sea in all 
 haste, and got on board himself, in order to escape from Macbeth. 
 
 In the meantime, Macbeth summoned the lady to surrender 
 the castle, and to deliver up her husband. But Lady Macduff, 
 who was a wise and a brave woman, made many excuses and 
 delays, until she knew that her husband was safely on board the 
 ship, and had sailed from the harbour. Then she spoke boldly 
 from the wall of the castle to the King, who was standing before 
 the gate still demanding entrance, with many threats of what he 
 would do if Macduff was not given up to him. 
 
 " Do you see," she said, " yon white sail upon the sea 1 
 Yonder goes Macduff to the Court of England. You will never 
 see him again, till he comes back with young Prince Malcolm, 
 to pull you down from the throne, and to put you to death. 
 You will never be able to pxit your yoke, as you threatened, on 
 the Thane of Fife's neck." 
 
 Some say that Macbeth was so much incensed at this bold 
 answer, that he and his guards attacked the castle and took it, 
 killing the brave lady and all whom they found there. But 
 others say, and I believe more truly, that the King, seeing that 
 the fortress of Kennoway was very strong, and that Macduff had 
 escaped from him, and was embarked for England, returned to 
 Dunsinane without attempting to take the castle. The ruins 
 are still to be seen, and are called the Thane's Castle. 
 
 There reigned at that time in England a very good king, 
 called Edward the Confessor. I told you that Prince Malcolm, 
 the son of Duncan, was at his court, soliciting assistance to 
 recover the Scottish throne. The arrival of Macduff greatly 
 aided the success of his petition ; for the English King knew 
 that Macduff was a brave and a wise man. As he assured 
 Edward that the Scots were tired of the cruel Macbeth, and 
 would join Prince Malcolm if he were to return to his country 
 at the head of an army, the King ordered a great warrior, called 
 Siward, Earl of Northumberland, to enter Scotland with a large 
 force [A.D. 1054], and assist Prince Malcolm in the recovery 
 of his father's crown.
 
 1033-1056 MACBETH 15 
 
 Then it happened just as Macduff had said ; for the Scottish 
 thanes and nobles would not fight for Macbeth, but joined 
 Prince Malcolm and Macduff against him ; so that at length he 
 shut himself up in his castle of Dunsinane, where he thought 
 himself safe, according to the old women's prophecy, until 
 Birnam Wood should come against him. He boasted of this 
 to his followers, and encouraged them to make a valiant defence, 
 assuring them of certain victory. At this time Malcolm and 
 Macduff were come as far as Birnam Wood, and lay encamped 
 there with their army. The next morning, when they were to 
 march across the broad valley to attack the castle of Dunsinane, 
 Macduff advised that every soldier should cut down a bough of 
 a tree and carry it in his hand, that the enemy might not be able 
 to see how many men were coming against them. 
 
 Now, the sentinel who stood on Macbeth's castle-wall, when 
 he saw all these branches, which the soldiers of Prince Malcolm 
 carried, ran to the King, and informed him that the wood of 
 Birnam was moving towards the castle of Dunsinane. The 
 King at first called him a liar, and threatened to put him to 
 death ; but when he looked from the walls himself, and saw the 
 appearance of a forest approaching from Birnam, he knew the 
 hour of his destruction was come. His followers, too, began 
 to be disheartened and to fly from the castle, seeing their master 
 had lost all hopes. 
 
 Macbeth, however, recollected his own bravery, and sallied 
 desperately out at the head of the few followers who remained 
 faithful to him. He was killed, after a furious resistance, 
 fighting hand to hand with Macduff in the thick of the battle. 
 Prince Malcolm mounted the throne of Scotland, and reigned 
 long and prosperously. He rewarded Macduff by declaring that 
 his descendants should lead the vanguard of the Scottish army 
 in battle, and place the crown on the King's head at the cere- 
 mony of coronation. King Malcolm also created the Thanes of 
 Scotland earls, after the title of dignity adopted in the court of 
 England. 1 
 
 1 The preceding traditional story of Macbeth has been adopted by Hol- 
 ingshed, dignified by the classical Latinity of Buchanan, and dramatised 
 by Shakspeare. For its variation from ascertained historical facts, see 
 HAILES'S Annals, 8vo, vol. i. pp. 1-4 ; CHALMERS'S Caledonia, vol. i. pp. 
 404-414. 
 
 " Malcolm died peaceably in 1033, and was succeeded by 'The gracious 
 Duncan,' the same who fell by the poniard of Macbeth. On reading
 
 16 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. IIJ 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The Feudal System, aiid the Norman Conquest 
 
 THE conduct of Edward the Confessor, King of England, in 
 the story of Macbeth, was very generous and noble. He 
 sent a large army and his General Siward to assist in dethron- 
 ing the tyrant Macbeth, and placing Malcolm, the son of the 
 murdered King Duncan, upon the throne ; and we have seen 
 how, with the assistance of Macduff, they fortunately succeeded. 
 But King Edward never thought of taking any part of Scotland 
 to himself in the confusion occasioned by the invasion ; for he 
 was a good man, and was not ambitious or covetous of what did 
 not belong to him. It had been well both for England and 
 Scotland that there had been more such good and moderate 
 
 these names every reader must feel as if brought from darkness into the 
 blaze of noonday ; so familiar are we with the personages whom we last 
 named, and so clearly and distinctly we recall the events in which they 
 are interested, in comparison with any doubtful and misty views which 
 we can form of the twilight times before and after that fortunate period. 
 But we must not be blinded by our poetical enthusiasm, nor add more 
 than due importance to legends because they have been woven into the 
 most striking tale of ambition and remorse that ever struck awe into a 
 human bosom. The genius of Shakspeare having found the tale of Mac- 
 beth in the Scottish chronicles of Holingshed, adorned it with a lustre 
 similar to that with which a level beam of the sun often invests some 
 fragment of glass, which, though shining at a distance with the lustre of 
 a diamond, is, by a near investigation, discovered to be of no worth or 
 estimation. 
 
 " Duncan, by his mother Beatrice a grandson of Malcolm II. , suc- 
 ceeded to the throne on his grandfather's death, in 1033 : he reigned only 
 six years. Macbeth, his near relation, also a grandchild of Malcolm II. , 
 though by the mother's side, was stirred up by ambition to contest the 
 throne with the possessor. The lady of Macbeth also, whose real name 
 was Graoch, had deadly injuries to avenge on the reigning prince. She 
 was the grand-daughter of Kenneth IV., killed in 1003, fighting against 
 Malcolm II. ; and other causes for revenge animated the mind of her who 
 has been since painted as the sternest of women. The old annalists add 
 some instigations of a supernational kind to the influence of a vindictive 
 woman over an ambitious husband. Three women, of more than human 
 stature and beauty, appeared to Macbeth in a dream or vision, and hailed 
 him successively by the titles of Thane of Cromarty, Thane of Moray, 
 which the King afterwards bestowed on him, and finally by that of King 
 of Scots ; this dream, it is said, inspired him with the seductive hopes sc 
 well expressed in the drama. 
 
 "Macbeth broke no law of hospitality in his attempt on Duncan's
 
 CHAP. Ill THE FEUDAL SYSTEM 17 
 
 kings, as it would have prevented many great quarrels, long 
 wars, and terrible bloodshed. 
 
 But good King Edward the Confessor did not leave any 
 children to succeed him on the throne. He was succeeded by 
 a king called Harold, who was the last monarch of the Saxon 
 race that ever reigned in England. The Saxons, you recollect, 
 had conquered the Britons, and now there came a new enemy 
 to attack the Saxons. These were the Normans, a people who 
 came from France, but were not originally Frenchmen. Their 
 forefathers were a colony of those Northern pirates, whom we 
 mentioned before as plundering all the sea-coasts which pro- 
 mised them any booty. They were frequently called Northmen 
 or Normans, as they came from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, 
 and the other Northern regions. A large body of them landed 
 on the north part of France, and compelled the king of that 
 country to yield up to them the possession of a large territory, 
 
 life. He attacked and slew the King at a place called Bothgowan, or 
 the Smith's House, near Elgin, in 1039, and not, as has been supposed, in 
 his own castle of Inverness. The act was bloody, as was the complexion 
 of the times ; but, in very truth, the claim of Macbeth to the throne, ac- 
 cording to the rule of Scottish succession, was better than that of Duncan. 
 As a king, the tyrant so much exclaimed against was, in reality, a firm, 
 just, and equitable prince. Apprehensions of danger from a party which 
 Malcolm, the eldest son of the slaughtered Duncan, had set on foot in 
 Northumberland, and still maintained in Scotland, seems, in process of 
 time, to have soured the temper of Macbeth, and rendered him formidable 
 to his nobility. Against Macduff, in particular, the powerful Maormor 
 of Fife, he had uttered some threats which occasioned that chief to fly 
 from the Court of Scotland. Urged by this new counsellor, Siward, the 
 Danish Earl of Northumberland, invaded Scotland in the year 1054, dis- 
 playing his banner in behalf of the banished Malcolm. Macbeth engaged 
 the foe in the neighbourhood of his celebrated castle of Dunsinane. He was 
 defeated, but escaped from the battle, and was slain at Lumphanan in 1056. 
 "Very slight observation will enable us to recollect how much this 
 simple statement differs from that of the drama, though the plot of the 
 latter is consistent enough with the inaccurate historians from whom 
 Shakspeare drew his materials. It might be added, that early authorities 
 show us no such persons as Banquo and his son Fleance, nor have we 
 reason to think that the latter ever fled farther from Macbeth than across 
 the flat scene, according to the stage direction. Neither were Banquo or 
 his son ancestors of the house of Stewart. All these things are now 
 known : but the mind retains pertinaciously the impression made by the 
 impositions of genius. While the works of Shakspeare are read, and the 
 English language subsists, History may say what she will, but the general 
 reader will only recollect Macbeth as a sacrilegious usurper, and Richard 
 as a deformed murtherer.'' LARDNER'S Cyclcpcedia. 
 I 2
 
 18 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. Ill 
 
 or province, called Neustria, the name of which was changed 
 to Normandy, when it became the property of these Northmen, 
 or Normans. This province was governed by the Norman 
 chief, who was called a duke, from a Latin word signifying 
 a general. He exercised all the powers of a king within his 
 dominions of Normandy, but, in consideration of his being pos- 
 sessed of a part of the territories of France, he acknowledged 
 the king of that country for his sovereign, and became what was 
 called his vassal. 
 
 This connection of a king as sovereign, with his princes and 
 great men as vassals, must be attended to and understood, in 
 order that you may comprehend the history which follows. A 
 great king, or sovereign prince, gave large provinces, or grants 
 of land, to his dukes, earls, and noblemen ; and each of these 
 possessed nearly as much power, within his own district, as the 
 king did in the rest of his dominions. But then the vassal, 
 whether duke, earl, or lord, or whatever he was, was obliged to 
 come with a certain number of men to assist the sovereign, 
 when he was engaged in war ; and in time of peace, he was 
 bound to attend on his court when summoned, and do homage 
 to him that is, acknowledge that he was his master and liege 
 lord. In like manner, the vassals of the crown, as they were 
 called, divided the lands which the king had given them into 
 estates, which they bestowed on knights and gentlemen, whom 
 they thought fitted to follow them in war, and to attend them 
 in peace ; for they, too, held courts, and administered justice, 
 each in his own province. Then the knights and gentlemen, 
 who had these estates from the great nobles, distributed the pro- 
 perty among an inferior class of proprietors, some of whom cul- 
 tivated the laud themselves, and others by means of husband- 
 men and peasants, who were treated as a sort of slaves, being 
 bought and sold like brute beasts, along with the farms which 
 they laboured. 
 
 Thus, when a great king, like that of France or England, 
 went to war, he summoned all his crown vassals to attend him, 
 with the number of armed men corresponding to his fief, as it 
 was called ; that is, the territory which had been granted to 
 each of them. The prince, duke, or earl, in order to obey the 
 summons, called upon all the gentlemen to whom he had given 
 estates, to attend his standard with their followers in arms. 
 The gentlemen, in their turn, called on the franklins, a lower
 
 CHAP. Ill THE FEUDAL SYSTEM 19 
 
 order of gentry, aiid upon the peasants ; and thua the whole 
 force of the kingdom was assembled in one array. This system 
 of holding lands for military service, that is, for fighting for 
 the sovereign when called upon, was called the FEUDAL SYSTEM. 
 It was general throughout all Europe for a great many ages. 
 
 But as many of these great crown vassals, as, for example, 
 the Dukes of Normandy, became extremely powerful, they were 
 in the custom of making peace and war at their own hand, 
 without the knowledge or consent of the King of France, their 
 sovereign. In the same manner, the vassals of those great 
 dukes and princes frequently made war on each other, for war 
 was the business of every one ; while the poor bondsman, who 
 cultivated the ground, was subjected to the greatest hardships, 
 and plundered and ill-treated by whichever side had the better. 
 The nobles and gentlemen fought on horseback, arrayed in 
 armour of steel, richly ornamented with gold and silver, and 
 were called knights or squires. They used long lances, with 
 which they rode fiercely against each other, and heavy swords, 
 or clubs or maces, to fight hand to hand, when the lance was 
 broken. Inferior persons fought on foot, and were armed with 
 bows and arrows, which, according to their form, were called 
 long-bows, or cross-bows, and served to kill men at a distance, 
 instead of guns and cannon, which were not then invented. 
 The poor husbandmen were obliged to come to the field of 
 battle with such arms as they had : and it was no uncommon 
 thing to see a few of these knights and squires ride over and 
 put to flight many hundreds of them; for the gentry were 
 clothed in complete armour, so that they could receive little 
 hurt, and the poor peasants had scarce clothes sufficient to 
 cover them. You may see coats of the ancient armour pre- 
 served in the Tower of London and elsewhere, as matters of 
 curiosity. 
 
 It was not a very happy time this, when there was scarcely 
 any law, but the strong took everything from the weak at their 
 pleasure ; for as almost all the inhabitants of the country were 
 obliged to be soldiers, it naturally followed that they were en- 
 gaged in continual fighting. 
 
 The great crown-vassals, in particular, made constant war 
 upon one another, and sometimes upon the sovereign himself, 
 though to do so was to incur the forfeiture of their fiefs, or the 
 territories which he had bestowed upon them, and which he
 
 20 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. Ill 
 
 was enabled by law to recall when they became his enemies 
 But they took the opportunity, when they were tolerably cer- 
 tain that their prince would not have strength sufficient to 
 punish them. In short, no one could maintain his right longer 
 than he had the power of defending it ; and this induced the 
 more poor and helpless to throw themselves under the protec- 
 tion of the brave and powerful acknowledge themselves their 
 vassals and subjects, and do homage to them, in order that 
 they might obtain their safeguard and patronage. 
 
 While things were in this state, William, the Duke of Nor- 
 mandy, and the leader of that valiant people whose ancestors 
 had conquered that province, began, upon the death of good 
 King Edward the Confessor, to consider the time as favourable 
 for an attempt to conquer the wealthy kingdom of England. 
 He pretended King Edward had named him his heir ; but his 
 surest reliance was upon a strong army of his brave Normans, 
 to whom were joined many knights and squires from distant 
 countries, who hoped, by assisting this Duke William in his 
 proposed conquest, to obtain from him good English estates, 
 under the regulations which I have described. 
 
 The Duke of Normandy landed [on the 28th of September^ 
 at Pevensey] in Sussex, in the year one thousand and sixty- 
 six after the birth of our blessed Saviour. He had an army 
 of sixty thousand chosen men, for accomplishing his bold en- 
 terprise. Harold, who had succeeded Edward the Confessor 
 on the throne of England, had been just engaged in repelling 
 an attack upon England by the Norwegians, and was now called 
 upon to oppose this new and more formidable invasion. He 
 was, therefore, taken at considerable disadvantage. 
 
 The armies of England and Normandy engaged in a desper- 
 ate battle near Hastings, and the victory was long obstinately 
 contested. The Normans had a great advantage, from having 
 amongst them large bands of archers, who used the long-bow, 
 and greatly annoyed the English, who had but few bow-men to 
 oppose them, and only short darts called javelins, which they 
 threw from their hands, and which could do little hurt at a 
 distance. Yet the victory remained doubtful, though the battle 
 had lasted from nine in the morning until the close of the day, 
 when an arrow pierced through King Harold's head, and he fell 
 dead on the spot. 1 The English then retreated from the field, 
 1 The battle of Hastings was fought 14th October 1066.
 
 CHAP. Ill THE NORMAN CONQUEST 21 
 
 and Duke William used his advantage with so much skill and 
 dexterity, that he made himself master of all England, and 
 reigned there under the title of William the Conqueror. He 
 divided great part of the rich country of England among his 
 Norman followers, who held their estates of him for military 
 service, according to the rules of the Feudal System, of which I 
 gave you some account. The Anglo-Saxons, you may well 
 suppose, were angry at this, and attempted several times to rise 
 against King William, and drive him and his soldiers back to 
 Normandy. But they were always defeated; and so King 
 William became more severe towards these Anglo-Saxons, and 
 took away their lands, and their high rank and appointments, 
 until he left scarce any of them in possession of great estates, or 
 offices of rank, but put his Normans above them, as masters, 
 in every situation. 
 
 Thus the Saxons who had conquered the British, as you 
 have before read, were in their turn conquered by the Normans, 
 deprived of their property, and reduced to be the servants of 
 those proud foreigners. To this day, though several of the 
 ancient nobility of England claim to be descended from the 
 Normans, there is scarcely a nobleman, and very few of the 
 gentry, who can show that they are descended of the Saxon 
 blood ; William the Conqueror took so much care to deprive 
 the conquered people of all power and importance. 
 
 It must have been a sad state of matters in England, when 
 the Normans were turning the Saxons out of their estates and 
 habitations, and degrading them from being freemen into slaves. 
 But good came out of it in the end ; for these Normans were 
 not only one of the bravest people that ever lived, but they 
 were possessed of more learning and skill in the arts than the 
 Saxons. They brought with them the art of building large and 
 beautiful castles and churches composed of stone, whereas the 
 Saxons had only miserable houses made of wood. The Nor- 
 mans introduced the use of the long-bow also, which became so 
 general, that the English were afterwards accounted the best 
 archers in the world, and gained many battles by their superi- 
 ority in that military art. Besides these advantages, the, 
 Normans lived in a more civilised manner than the Saxons, 
 and observed among each other the rules of civility and good- 
 breeding, of which the Saxons were ignorant. The Norman 
 barons were also great friends to national liberty, and would
 
 22 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. IV 
 
 not allow their kings to do anything contrary to their privi- 
 leges, but resisted them whenever they attempted anything 
 beyond the power which was given to them by law. Schools 
 were set up in various places by the Norman princes, and 
 learning was encouraged. Large towns were founded in dif- 
 ferent places of the kingdom, and received favour from the Nor- 
 man kings, who desired to have the assistance of the townsmen 
 in case of any dispute with their nobility. 
 
 Thus the Norman Conquest, though a most unhappy and 
 disastrous event at the time it took place, rendered England, 
 in the end, a more wise, more civilised, and more powerful 
 country than it had been before ; and you will find many such 
 cases in history, my dear child, in which it has pleased the pro- 
 vidence of God to bring great good out of what seems, at first 
 sight, to be unmixed evil. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Reign of Malcolm Canmore of David I. Battle of the Standard 
 Origin of the Claim by England of Supremacy over Scotland Malcolm 
 IV. Origin of Armorial Bearings William tht Lion 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Harold, William the 
 Conqueror, William Rufus, Henry I., Stephen, Henry II., Richard I. 
 France: Henry I., Philip I., Louis VI., Louis VII., Philip II. 
 
 1057 1189 
 
 THE last chapter may seem to have little to do with Scottish 
 history, yet the Norman Conquest of England produced a great 
 effect upon their neighbours. In the first place, a very great 
 number of the Saxons who fled from the cruelty of William the 
 Conqueror, retired into Scotland, and this had a considerable 
 effect in civilising the southern parts of that country ; for if 
 the Saxons were inferior to the Normans in arts and in learn- 
 ing, they were, on the other hand, much superior to the Scots 
 who were a rude and very ignorant people. 
 
 These exiles were headed and accompanied by what remained 
 of the Saxon royal family, and particularly by a young prince
 
 1057- 1093 MALCOLM CANMORE 23 
 
 named Edgar Etheling, who was a near kinsman of Edward the 
 Confessor, and the heir of his throne, but dispossessed by the 
 Norman Conqueror. 
 
 This prince brought with him to Scotland two sisters, named 
 Margaret and Christian. They were received with much kind- 
 ness by Malcolm III., called Canmore (or Great Head), who 
 remembered the assistance which he had received from Edward 
 the Confessor, and felt himself obliged to behave generously 
 towards his family in their misfortunes. He himself married 
 the Princess Margaret [1068], and made her the Queen of 
 Scotland. She was an excellent woman, and of such a gentle, 
 amiable disposition, that she often prevailed upon her husband, 
 who was a fierce, passionate man, to lay aside his resentment, 
 and forgive those who had offended him. 
 
 When Malcolm, King of Scotland, was thus connected with 
 the Saxon royal family of England, he began to think of chasing 
 away the Normans, and of restoring Edgar Etheling to the 
 English throne. This was an enterprise for which he had not 
 sufficient strength ; but he made deep and bloody inroads into 
 the northern parts of England, and brought away so many cap- 
 tives, that they were to be found for many years afterwards in 
 every Scottish village, nay, in every Scottish hovel. No doubt, 
 the number of the Saxons thus introduced into Scotland tended 
 much to improve and civilise the manners of the people ; for, 
 as I have already said, the Scots were inferior to the Saxons in 
 all branches- of useful knowledge. 
 
 Not only the Saxons, but afterwards a number of the Nor- 
 mans themselves, came to settle in Scotland. King "William 
 could not satisfy the whole of them, and some, who were dis- 
 contented, and thought they could mend their fortunes, repaired 
 to the Scottish court, and were welcomed by King Malcolm. 1 
 He was desirous to retain these brave men in his service, and 
 
 1 "During this reign a great change was introduced into the manners 
 of Scotland. Malcolm had passed his youth at the English court ; he 
 married an Anglo-Saxon princess ; he afforded an asylum in his domin- 
 ions to many English and Norman malecontents. The king appeared 
 in public with a state and retinue unknown in more rude and simple times, 
 and affected to give frequent and sumptuous entertainments to his nobles. 
 The natives of Scotland, tenacious of their ancient customs, viewed with dis- 
 gust the introduction of foreign manners, and secretly censured the favour 
 shown to the English and Norman adventurers, as proceeding from injuri- 
 ous partiality." HAILBS'S Annals of Scotland.
 
 24 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. IV 
 
 for that purpose he gave them great grants of land, to be held 
 for military services ; and most of the Scottish nobility are of 
 Norman descent. And thus the Feudal System was introduced 
 into Scotland as well as England, and went on gradually gaining 
 strength, till it became the general law of the country, as indeed 
 it was that of Europe at large. 
 
 Malcolm Canmore, thus increasing in power, and obtaining 
 reinforcements of warlike and civilised subjects, began greatly 
 to enlarge his dominions. At first he had resided almost entirely 
 in the province of Fife, and at the town of Duiifermline, where 
 there are still the ruins of a small tower which served him for 
 a palace. But as he found his power increase, he ventured 
 across the Firth of Forth, and took possession of Edinburgh and 
 the surrounding country, which had hitherto been accounted 
 part of England. The great strength of the castle of Edinburgh, 
 situated upon a lofty rock, led him to choose that town fre- 
 quently for his residence, so that in time it became the metro- 
 polis, or chief city of Scotland. 
 
 This King Malcolm was a brave and wise prince, though 
 without education. 1 He often made war upon King William 
 the Conqueror of England, and upon his son and successor 
 William, who, from his complexion, was called William Eufus, 
 that is, Red William. Malcolm was sometimes beaten in these 
 wars, but he was more frequently successful ; and not only 
 made a complete conquest of Lothian, but threatened also to 
 possess himself of the great English province of Northumberland, 
 which he frequently invaded. In Cumberland, also, he held 
 many possessions. But in the year 1093, having assembled a 
 large army for the purpose, Malcolm besieged the Border fort- 
 
 1 " In the introduction o! the Saxon language into his kingdom," it 
 has been said, " Malcolm himself was a considerable agent. As fre- 
 quently happens, he caught the flame of religion from the pure torch of 
 conjugal affection. His love of his consort led him to engage in the devo- 
 tional services which afterwards procured for her the title of a saint. 
 Totally illiterate, the King was unable to peruse his wife's missals and 
 prayer-books ; but he had them gorgeously bound, and frequently, by 
 kissing them, expressed his veneration for what he could not understand. 
 When the Queen undertook to correct some alleged abuses of the church, 
 Malcolm stood interpreter betwixt the fair and royal reformer and such of 
 the Scottish clergy as did not understand English, which Malcolm loved 
 because it was the native tongue of Margaret. Such pictures occurring in 
 history delight by their beauty and simplicity." Miscellaneous Pros: 
 Works.
 
 1093-1124 MALCOLM CANMORE 25 
 
 ress of Alnwick, where he was unexpectedly attacked by a great 
 Norman baron, called Robert de Moubray, who defeated the 
 Scottish army completely. Malcolm Canmore was killed in 
 the action, and his eldest son fell by his side. 
 
 There is a silly story told of Malcolm being killed by one of 
 the garrison of Alnwick, who, pretending to surrender the keys 
 of the castle on the point of a spear, thrust the lance-point into 
 the eye of the King of Scotland, and so killed him. They pre- 
 tend that this soldier took the name of Pierce-eye, and that the 
 great family of the Percies of Northumberland were descended 
 from him. But this is all a fable. The Percies are descended 
 from a great Norman baron, who came over with William, and 
 who took his name from his castle and estate in Normandy. 
 
 Queen Margaret of Scotland was extremely ill at the time 
 her husband marched against England. When she was lying 
 on her death-bed, she saw her second son, who had escaped 
 from the fatal battle, approach her bed. " How fares it," said 
 the expiring Queen, " with your father, and with your brother 
 Edward?" The young man stood silent. "I conjure you," 
 she added, " by the Holy Cross, and by the duty you owe me, 
 to tell me the truth." 
 
 "Your husband and your son are both slain." 
 
 " The will of God be done ! " answered the Queen, and ex- 
 pired, with expressions of devout resignation to the pleasure 
 of Heaven. This good princess was esteemed a saint by those 
 of the period in which she lived, and was called Saint Mar- 
 garet. 
 
 After the death of Malcolm Canmore, the Scottish crown 
 was occupied successively by three princes of little power 
 or talent, who seized on the supreme authority because the 
 children of the deceased sovereign were under age. After these 
 had ended their short reigns, the sons of Malcolm came to 
 the throne in succession, by name Edgar ; Alexander, called the 
 First ; and David, also called the First of that name. These 
 two last princes were men of great ability. David, in particu- 
 lar, was a wise, religious, and powerful prince. He had many 
 furious wars with England, and made dreadful incursions into 
 the neighbouring provinces, which were the more easy that the 
 country of England was then disunited by civil war. The cause 
 was this : 
 
 Henry I., the youngest son of William the Conqueror, had
 
 26 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. IV 
 
 died, leaving only one child, a daughter, named Matilda, or 
 Maud, whose mother was a daughter of Malcolm Canmore, 
 and a sister, consequently, of David, King of Scotland. Dur- 
 ing Henry's life, all the English barons had agreed that his 
 daughter should succeed him in the throne. Upon the King's 
 death [1135], however, Stephen, Earl of Montague, a great 
 Norman lord, usurped the government, to the exclusion of the 
 Empress Matilda (so called because she had married the Em- 
 peror of Germany), and caused himself to be proclaimed king. 
 Many of the English barons took arms against Stephen, with 
 the purpose of doing justice to the Empress Maud, and her son 
 Henry. It was natural that David, King of Scotland, should 
 join the party which favoured his niece. But he also took the 
 opportunity to attempt an extension of his own dominions. 
 
 He assembled from the different provinces of Scotland a 
 large but ill- disciplined army, consisting of troops of different 
 nations and languages, who had only one common principle 
 the love of plunder. There were Normans, and Germans, and 
 English ; there were the Danes of Northumberland, and the 
 British of Cumberland, and of the valley of Clyde ; there were 
 the men of Teviotdale, who were chiefly Britons, and those of 
 Lothian, who were Saxons ; and there were also the people of 
 Galloway. These last were almost a separate and independent 
 people, of peculiarly wild and ferocious habits. Some histori- 
 ans say they came of the race of the ancient Picts ; some call 
 them the wild Scots of Galloway ; all agree that they were a 
 fierce, ungovernable race of men, who fought half naked, and 
 committed great cruelty upon the inhabitants of the invaded 
 country. These men of Galloway were commanded by several 
 chiefs. Amongst others, was a chief leader called William 
 MacDonochy, that is, William the sou of Duncan. 
 
 The barons of the northern parts of England, hearing that 
 the King of Scotland was advancing at the head of this formid- 
 able army, resolved to assemble their forces to give him battle. 
 Thurstan, the Archbishop of York, joined with them. They 
 hoisted a banner, which they called that of Saint Peter, upon 
 a carriage mounted on wheels l from which circumstance the 
 
 1 "It was the mast of a ship, fitted into the perch of a high four- 
 wheeled carriage ; from it were displayed the banners of St. Peter of York, 
 of St. John of Beverly, and of St. Wilfred of Rippon. On the top of this 
 mast there was a little casket, containing a consecrated host." HAILKS.
 
 1124-1138 BATTLE OF THE STANDARD 27 
 
 war took the name of the Battle of the Standard. The two 
 armies came in sight of each other at Cuton Moor, near 
 Northallerton, and prepared to fight on the next morning. It 
 was a contest of great importance ; for if David should prove 
 able to defeat the army now opposed to him, there seemed 
 little to prevent him from conquering England as far as the 
 Humber. 
 
 There was in the English army an aged baron named Kobert 
 Bruce, father of a race afterwards very famous in Scottish history. 
 He had great estates both in England and Scotland. He loved 
 King David, because he had been formerly his companion in 
 arms, and he resolved to make an effort to preserve peace. 
 
 He went, therefore, to the Scottish camp, and endeavoured 
 to persuade King David to retreat, and to make peace re- 
 monstrated with him on the excesses which his army had 
 committed exaggerated the danger in which he was placed ; 
 and finally burst into tears when he declared his own purpose 
 of relinquishing his allegiance to the King of Scotland, and 
 fighting against him in battle, if he persevered in his invasion. 
 The King shed tears at this exhortation; but William Mac- 
 Donochy exclaimed, "Bruce, thou art a false traitor!" Bruce, 
 incensed at this insult, left the camp of the Scots, renouncing 
 for ever all obedience to David, and giving up the lands he held 
 of him in Scotland. 
 
 A dispute arose in the Scottish council of war. The Gallo- 
 way men, who had gained a considerable battle in their advance 
 into England, were intoxicated with their own success, and 
 demanded peremptorily that they should lead the van in the 
 battle of the next day. King David would fain have eluded 
 the request. He had more confidence in the disciplined valour 
 of the men-at-arms in his service, than in those brave, but 
 tumultuous barbarians. A chief, called Malise, Earl of Strath- 
 earn, saw and was angry at David's hesitation. "Why so 
 much confidence in a plate of steel, or in rings of iron ?" said 
 he. " I who wear no armour, will go as far to-morrow with a 
 bare breast, as any one who wears a cuirass." 
 
 "Rude earl," said Allan de Percy, a Norman knight, "you 
 brag of what you dare not do." 
 
 The King interposed, and with difficulty appeased the dis- 
 pute. He granted with reluctance the request of the men of 
 Galloway.
 
 28 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. IV 
 
 In the morning, David prepared for the eventful contest. 
 He drew his army up in three lines. The first, according to 
 his promise, consisted of the Galloway men, who were com- 
 manded by William MacDonochy, and Ulrick, and Dovenald. 
 The second line consisted of the men-at-arms, the Borderers of 
 Teviotdale, with the archers of Cumberland and Strathclyde. 
 They were headed by Henry, Prince of Scotland, a brave and 
 amiable youth. The King himself, surrounded by a guard 
 consisting of English and Norman men-at-arms, commanded 
 the third body of troops, who were the men of Lothian, with 
 the Northern Scots, properly so called. 
 
 The English were formed into one compact and firm battal- 
 ion, in the midst of which the consecrated Standard was dis- 
 played. The bishop of Orkney, as deputed by the aged Thur- 
 stan, mounted the carriage of St. Peter's Standard, and pro- 
 claiming the war was a holy one, assured each English soldier 
 that those who fell should immediately pass into Paradise. 
 The English barons grasped each other's hands, and swore to 
 be victorious, or die in the field. l 
 
 The armies being now near each other, the men of Galloway 
 charged, with cries which resembled the roar of a tempest. 
 They fought for two hours with the greatest fury, and made 
 such slaughter amongst the English spearmen that they began 
 to give way. But the archers supported them, and showered 
 their arrows so thick upon the Galloway men, that, having no 
 defensive armour to resist the shot, they became dismayed, 
 and began to retreat. Prince Henry of Scotland advanced to 
 their support with the men-at-arms. He rushed at full gallop 
 on that part of the English line which was opposed to him, 
 and broke through it, says a historian, as if it had been a 
 spider's web. He then attacked the rear of the English ; the 
 men of Galloway rallied, and were about to renew the contest, 
 when an English soldier showed the head of a slain man on a 
 spear, and called out it was the King of Scots. The falsehood 
 
 1 "The aged and venerable Walter L'Espec (also) ascended the carriage 
 in which the holy standard was fixed, and harangued the surrounding 
 multitude. He reminded them of the glory of their ancestors, and de- 
 scribed the barbarities of the Scottish invaders. ' Your cause is just ; it 
 is for your all that you combat ; I swear, said he, grasping the hand of 
 the Earl of Albemarle, ' I swear,' that on this day I will overcome the 
 Scots, or perish. ' ' So swear we all, ' cried the barons assembled around 
 him." HAILKS.
 
 1138-1153 DAVID i. 29 
 
 was believed by the Scottish army, who fell into confusion 
 and fled. The King in vain threw his helmet from his head, 
 and rode barefaced among the soldiers, to show that he still 
 lived. The alarm and panic were general, and the Scots lost 
 a battle which, if they had won, must have given them a great 
 part of England, and eventually, it may be, the whole of that 
 kingdom, distracted as it was with civil war. Such was the 
 famous battle of the Standard. 1 It forced David to make peace 
 with England, but it was upon the most favourable terms ; 
 since, excepting the fortresses of Newcastle and Bamborough, 
 the whole of Northumberland and Durham was surrendered by 
 Stephen to the Scottish monarch. 
 
 David died in the rear 1153. His brave and amiable sou, 
 Henry, had died two or three years before his father. David 
 was a most excellent sovereign. He would leave his sport of 
 hunting, or anything in which he was engaged at the time, if 
 the meanest of his subjects came to complain of any wrong 
 which he had received ; nor would he resume his amusement 
 till he had seen the poor man redressed. He is also much 
 praised by historians, who, in those times, were chiefly clergy- 
 men, for his great bounty to the church. He founded bishop- 
 rics, and built and endowed many monasteries, which he vested 
 with large grants of lands out of the patrimony of the kings. 
 Amongst these were the Abbeys of Holyrood, near Edinburgh ; 
 of Melrose, in Roxburghshire ; of Dryburgh, in Berwickshire ; 
 of Newbattle, in Lothian ; of Cambuskenneth, in Stirlingshire ; 
 also those of Kelso and Jedburgh, and many ecclesiastical 
 houses of less note. 
 
 It was, perhaps, as much from his munificence to the church, 
 as from his private virtues and public deeds, that this monarch 
 was received into the catalogue of holy persons, and called 
 Saint David. 2 One of his successors, James I., who esteemed 
 
 1 " The Galwegians cast away their arms ; the troops of Lothian, the 
 Islanders, and all who composed the third body, fled without show of re- 
 sistance. The King leapt from his horse, and brought up the reserve to 
 support the infantry of the second body ; but the Scots, abandoned by so 
 many of their companions, were now dispirited and feeble. The nobles 
 who attended on the person of the King, saw that the day was irrecover- 
 ably lost ; they urged and even compelled him to retreat. The fugitives, 
 perceiving the royal ensign displayed, rallied around it, opposed a formid- 
 able body to the conquerors, and checked their pursuit. This memorable 
 battle was fought on the 22d August 1138." HAILES. 
 
 3 " Aldred," says Lord Hailes, "has recorded many curious, although
 
 30 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAF. IV 
 
 his liberality to the church rather excessive, said, " St. David 
 had proved a sore saint for the crown." But we ought to re- 
 collect that the church lands were frequently spared, out of 
 veneration to religion, when, in those restless times, all the 
 rest of the country was burned and plundered. David, there- 
 fore, by putting these large estates under the protection of the 
 church, may be considered as having done his best to secure 
 them against devastation ; and we may observe that most of 
 his monasteries were founded in provinces peculiarly exposed 
 to the dangers of war. The monks, it must be also remem- 
 bered, were the only persons possessed of the most ordinary 
 branches of knowledge. They were able to read and write ; 
 they understood French and Latin ; they were excellent archi 
 tects, as their magnificent buildings still testify ; they possessed 
 the art of gardening, and of forming plantations ; and it appears 
 that the children of the gentry were often educated in these 
 monasteries. It was, therefore, no wonder that David should 
 have desired to encourage communities so nearly connected 
 with arts and learning, although he certainly carried to excess 
 the patronage which he was disposed to afford them. 
 
 It was during the reigns of Malcolm Canmore and his suc- 
 cessors, that a dispute arose, grounded upon the feudal law, 
 
 iniuute particulars, of the manners and private life of David. At the 
 condemnation of the worst of criminals his strong emotions of sympathy 
 were visible to the spectators ; yet, resisting the seduction of his tender 
 nature, he constantly maintained the just severity of a magistrate. His 
 apartments were always open to suitors ; for he had nothing secret but 
 his counsels. On certain days he sat at the gate of his palace, to hear 
 and to decide the causes of the poor. This he did, probably, with the 
 view of restraining the enormities of inferior judges, so prevalent in loose 
 times. To suppose that he regarded the poor in judgment, would be to 
 impute ostentatious injustice to a wise and good man. While deciding 
 against the poor, he attempted to make them understand and acknowledge 
 the equity of his decisions : an attempt equally benevolent and vain ! At 
 sunset he dismissed all his attendants, and retired to meditate on his 
 duty to God and the people. At daybreak he resumed his labours. He 
 used hunting as an exercise ; yet so as never to encroach on the hours of 
 business. ' I have seen him," says Aldred, ' quit his horse and dismiss his 
 hunting equipage, when any, even of the meanest of his subjects, implored 
 an audience.' He sometimes employed his leisure hours in the culture 
 of his garden, and in the philosophic amusement of budding and ingraft- 
 ing trees." Buchanan, whose principles are esteemed unfavourable to 
 monarchy, says, " A more perfect exemplar of a good king is to be 
 found in the reign of David I. than in all the theories of the learned and 
 ingenious."
 
 1138-1153 SUPREMACY OF ENGLAND 31 
 
 which occasioned a most dreadful quarrel between England and 
 Scotland ; and though Master Littlejohn be no great lawyer, 
 it is necessary he should try all he can to understand it, for it 
 is a very material point in history. 
 
 While the English were fighting among themselves, and 
 afterwards with the Normans, the Scottish Kings, as I have 
 repeatedly told you, had been enlarging their dominions at the 
 expense of their neighbours, and had possessed themselves, in 
 a great measure, of the northern provinces of England, called 
 Lothian, Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland. 
 After much fighting and disputing, it was agreed that the 
 King of Scotland should keep these English provinces, or such 
 parts of them as he possessed, not as an independent sovereign, 
 however, but as a vassal of the King of England ; and that he 
 should do homage for the same to the English King, and at- 
 tend him to the field of battle when summoned. But this 
 homage, and this military service, were not paid on account of 
 the kingdom of Scotland, which had never since the beginning 
 of the world been under the dominion of an English King, but 
 was, and had always remained independent, a free state, having 
 sovereigns and monarchs of its own. It may seem strange to 
 Master Littlejohn, how a King of Scotland should be vassal 
 for that part of his dominions which lay hi England, and an 
 independent prince when he was considered as King of Scot- 
 land ; but this might easily happen, according to the regula- 
 tions of the Feudal System. William the Conqueror himself 
 stood in the same situation ; for he held his great dukedom of 
 Normandy, and his other possessions in France, as a vassal of 
 the King of France, by whom it had been granted as a fief to 
 his ancestor Hollo ; but he was, at the same time, the inde- 
 pendent Sovereign of England, of which he had gained posses- 
 sion by his victory at Hastings. 
 
 The English Kings, however, occasionally took opportunities 
 to insinuate that the homage paid by the Scottish Kings was 
 not only for the provinces which they at this time possessed in 
 England, but also for the kingdom of Scotland. The Scottish 
 Kings, on the contrary, although they rendered the homage 
 and services demanded, as holding large possessions within the 
 boundaries of England, uniformly and positively refused to 
 permit it to be said or supposed, that they were subject to any 
 claim of homage on account of the kingdom of Scotland. Thia
 
 32 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. IV 
 
 was one cause of the frequent wars which took place betwixt 
 the countries, in which the Scots maintained their national 
 independence, and though frequently defeated, were often vic- 
 torious, and threatened, upon more than one occasion, to make 
 extensive acquisitions of territory at the expense of their neigh- 
 bours. 
 
 At the death of David the First of Scotland, that monarch 
 was in full possession of Lothian, which began to be considered 
 as a part of Scotland, and which still continues to be so ; as 
 also of Northumberland and of Cumberland, with great part of 
 Westmoreland, of which his sovereignty was less secure. 
 
 David was succeeded by his grandson, named MALCOLM 
 [1153, in his twelfth year], the eldest son of the brave and 
 generous Prince Henry. Malcolm did homage to the King of 
 England for the possessions which he had in England. He 
 was so kind and gentle in his disposition that he was usually 
 called Malcolm the Maiden. Malcolm attached himself parti- 
 cularly to Henry II., King of England, who was indeed a very 
 wise and able prince. The Scottish King at one time went 
 the length of resigning to Henry the possessions he held in the 
 north of England ; nay, he followed that prince into France, 
 and acted as a volunteer in his army. This partiality to the 
 English King disgusted the Scottish nation, who were afraid 
 of the influence which Henry possessed over the mind of their 
 youthful sovereign. They sent a message to France to upbraid 
 Malcolm with his folly and to declare they would not have 
 Henry of England to rule over them. Malcolm returned to 
 Scotland with all speed, and reconciled himself to his subjects. 
 He died at Jedburgh in the year 1165. 
 
 Malcolm the Maiden was succeeded by his brother WIL- 
 LIAM [crowned 24th December 1165,] a son of Prince Henry, 
 and grandson of the good King David. In his time, warriors 
 and men of consequence began to assume what are called armo- 
 rial bearings, which you may very often see cut upon seals, 
 engraved on silver plate, and painted upon gentlemen's carriages. 
 Now, Master Littlejohn, it is as well to know the meaning of 
 this ancient custom. 
 
 In the time of which I am speaking, the warriors went into 
 battle clad in complete armour, which covered them from top 
 to toe. On their head they wore iron caps, called helmets, 
 with visors, which came down and protected the face, so that
 
 ll53-"74 WILLIAM THE LION 33 
 
 nothing could be seen of the countenance except the eyes 
 peeping through bars of iron. You have seen such helmets in 
 grandpapa's entrance-hall. But as it was necessary that a 
 king, lord, or knight, should be known to his followers in 
 battle, they adopted two ways of distinguishing themselves. 
 The one was by a crest, that is, a figure of some kind or other, 
 as a lion, a wolf, a hand holding a sword, or some such decora- 
 tion, which they wore on the top of the helmet, as we talk of 
 a cock's comb being the crest of that bird. But besides this 
 mark of distinction, these warriors were accustomed to paint 
 emblematical figures, sometimes of a very whimsical kind, 
 upon their shields. These emblems became general; and at 
 length no one was permitted to bear any such armorial device, 
 excepting he either had right to carry it by inheritance, or 
 that such right had been conferred upon him by some sovereign 
 prince. To assume the crest or armorial emblems of another 
 man was a high offence, and often mortally resented ; and to 
 adopt armorial bearings for yourself, was punished as a misde- 
 meanour by a peculiar court, composed of men called Heralds, 
 who gave their name to the science called Heraldry. As men 
 disused the wearing of armour, the original purpose of heraldry 
 fell into neglect, but still persons of ancient descent remained 
 tenacious of the armorial distinctions of their ancestors ; and, 
 as I told you before, they are now painted on carriages, or 
 placed above the principal door of country-houses, or frequently 
 engraved on seals. But there is much less attention paid to 
 heraldry now than there was formerly, although the College of 
 Heralds still exists. 
 
 Now, William King of Scotland having chosen for his ar- 
 morial bearing a Red Lion, rampant (that is, standing on its 
 hind legs, as if it were going to climb), he acquired the name 
 of William the Lion. And this Rampant Lion still constitutes 
 the arms of Scotland, and the President of the Heralds' Court 
 in that country, who is always a person of high rank, is called 
 Lord Lion King-at-Arms. 
 
 William, though a brave man, and though he had a lion for 
 his emblem, was unfortunate in war. In the year 1174 he 
 invaded England, for the purpose of demanding and compelling 
 restoration of the portion of Northumberland which had been 
 possessed by his ancestors. He himself, with a small body of 
 men, lay in careless security near Alnwick, while his numerous, 
 I 3
 
 34 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. IV 
 
 but barbarous and undisciplined army, were spread throughout 
 the country, burning and destroying wherever they came. 
 Some gallant Yorkshire barons marched to the aid of their 
 neighbours of Northumberland. They assembled four hundred 
 men-at-arms, and made a forced march of twenty-four miles 
 from Newcastle towards Alnwick, without being discovered. 
 On the morning a thick mist fell they became uncertain of 
 their road and some proposed to turn back " If you should 
 all turn back," said one of their leaders, named Bernard de 
 Baliol, " I would go forward alone." The others adopted the 
 same resolution, and, concealed by the mist, they rode forward 
 towards Alnwick. In their way the} 7 suddenly encountered 
 the Scottish King, at the head of a small party of only sixty 
 men. William so little expected a sudden attack of this 
 nature that at first he thought the body of cavalry which he 
 saw advancing was a pail of his own army. When he was unde- 
 ceived, he had too much of the lion about him to fear. " Now 
 shall we see," he said, "which of us are good knights ;" and 
 instantly charged the Yorkshire barons, with the handful of 
 men who attended him. But sixty men at arms could make 
 no impression on four hundred, and as the rest of William's 
 army were too distant to give him assistance, he was, after de- 
 feuding himself with the utmost gallantry, unhorsed and made 
 prisoner. The English immediately retreated with their royal 
 captive, after this bold and successful adventure. They carried 
 William to Newcastle, and from that town to Northampton, 
 where he was conducted to the presence of Henry II., King of 
 England, with his legs tied under his horse's belly, as if he had 
 been a common malefactor or felon. 1 
 
 This was a great abuse of the advantage which fortune had 
 given to Henry, and was in fact more disgraceful to himself 
 than to his prisoner. But the English King's subsequent 
 conduct was equally harsh and ungenerous. He would not 
 release his unfortunate captive until he had agreed to do 
 homage to the King of England, not only for his English pos- 
 sessions, but also for Scotland, and all his other dominions. 
 The Scottish parliament were brought to acquiesce in this 
 treaty ; and thus, in order to recover the liberty of their King, 
 
 1 " William was at first confined to the castle of Richmond, but Henry, 
 sensible of the value of this unexpected acquisition, secured him beyond 
 seas at Falaise in Normandy." HAILES.
 
 II74-HS9 TREATY OF FALAISK 35 
 
 they sacrificed the independence of their country, which remained 
 for a time subject to the English claim of paramount sove- 
 reignty. This dishonourable treaty was made on the 8th of 
 December 1174. 
 
 Thus the great national question of supremacy was for a 
 time abandoned by the Scots ; but this state of things did not 
 last long. In 1189 Henry II. died, and was succeeded by his 
 son, Richard the First, one of the most remarkable men in 
 English history. He was so brave that he was generally 
 known by the name of Coeur de Lion, that is, the Lion-hearted ; 
 and he was as generous as he was brave. Nothing was so 
 much at his heart as what was then called the Holy War, 
 that is, a war undertaken to drive the Saracens out of Pales- 
 tine. For this he resolved to go to Palestine with a large 
 army : but it was first necessary that he should place his 
 affairs at home in such condition as might ensure the quiet of 
 his dominions during his absence upon the expedition. This 
 point could not be accomplished without his making a solid 
 peace with Scotland ; and in order to obtain it, King Richard 
 resolved to renounce the claim for homage, which had been 
 extorted from William the Lion. By a charter, dated 5th 
 December of the same year (1189), he restored to the Kig 
 of Scots the castles of Berwick and Roxburgh, and granted an 
 acquittance to him of all obligations which Henry II. had ex- 
 torted from him in consequence of his captivity, reserving only 
 Richard's title to such homage as was anciently rendered by 
 Malcolm Canmore. For this renunciation William paid ten 
 thousand merks ; a sum which probably assisted in furnishing 
 the expenses of Richard's expedition to Palestine. 
 
 Thus was Scotland again restored to the dignity of an inde- 
 pendent nation, and her monarchs were declared liable only to 
 the homage due for the lands which the King of Scotland held 
 beyond the boundaries of his own kingdom, and within those 
 of England. The period of Scottish subjection lasted only 
 fifteen years. 
 
 This generous behaviour of Richard of England was attended 
 with such good effects that it almost put an end to all wars 
 and quarrels betwixt England and Scotland for more than a 
 hundred years, during which time, with one or two brief in- 
 terruptions, the nations lived in great harmony together. This 
 was much to the happiness of both, and might in time have led
 
 36 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. V 
 
 to their becoming one people, for which Nature, which placed 
 them both in the same island, seemed to have designed them. 
 Intercourse for the purpose of traffic became more frequent. 
 Some of the Scottish and English families formed marriages 
 and friendships together, and several powerful lords and barons 
 had lauds both in England and Scotland. All seemed to promise 
 peace and tranquillity betwixt the two kingdoms, until a course 
 of melancholy accidents having nearly extinguished the Scottish 
 royal family, tempted the English monarch again to set up his 
 unjust pretensions to be sovereign of Scotland, and gave occasion 
 to a series of wars, fiercer and more bloody than any which had 
 ever before taken place betwixt the countries. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Accession of Alexander II. Burning of the Bishop of Caithness 
 Accession of Alexander III. Battle of Largs 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: John, Henry III, 
 France: Philip II., Louis VIII., Louis IX. 
 
 1214 1266 
 
 WILLIAM THE LION died at Stilling in December 1214, and 
 was succeeded by his son, Alexander II., a youth in years, but 
 remarkable for prudence and for firmness. In his days there 
 was some war with England, as he espoused the cause of the 
 disaffected barons, against King John. But no disastrous con- 
 sequences having arisen, the peace betwixt the two kingdoms 
 was so effectually restored that Henry III. of England, having 
 occasion to visit his French dominions, committed the care of 
 the northern frontiers of his kingdom to Alexander of Scotland, 
 the prince who was most likely to have seized the opportunity 
 of disturbing them. Alexander II. repaid with fidelity the 
 great and honourable trust which his brother sovereign had re- 
 posed in him. 
 
 Relieved from the cares of an English war, Alexander en- 
 deavoured to civilise the savage manners of his own people. 
 These were disorderly to a great degree.
 
 BISHOP OF CAITHNESS 37 
 
 For example, one Adam, Bishop of Caithness, proved ex- 
 tremely rigorous in enforcing the demand of tithes, the tenth 
 part, that is, of the produce of the ground, which the church 
 claimed for support of the clergy. The people of Caithness 
 assembled to consider what should be done in this dilemma, 
 when one of them exclaimed, " Short rede, good rede, slay we 
 the bishop!" which means, "Few words are best, let us kill 
 the bishop." They ran instantly to the bishop's house, as- 
 saulted it with fury, set it on fire, and burned the prelate alive 
 in his own palace (A.D. 1222). 
 
 While this tragedy was going on, some of the bishop's 
 servants applied for protection for their master to the Earl of 
 Orkney and Caithness. This nobleman, who probably favoured 
 the conspiracy, answered hypocritically, that the bishop had 
 only to come to him, and he would assure him of protection ; 
 as if it had been possible for the unhappy bishop to escape from 
 his blazing palace, and through his raging enemies, and to make 
 his way to the earl's residence. 
 
 The tidings of this cruel action were brought to Alexander 
 II. when he was upon a journey towards England. He im- 
 mediately turned back, marched into Caithness with an army, 
 and put to death four hundred of those who had been concerned 
 in the murder of the bishop. The hard-hearted earl was soon 
 afterwards slain, and his castle burned, in revenge of that odious 
 crime. 
 
 By the prompt administration of justice, Alexander both 
 became obeyed and dreaded. He was a sovereign of consider- 
 able power, beloved both by English and Scots. He had a 
 brave and not ill -disciplined army; but his cavalry, which 
 amounted only to a thousand spears, were not very well 
 mounted, and bore no proportion to one hundred thousand of 
 infantry, strong, good, and resolute men. 
 
 ALEXANDER III., then only in his eighth year, succeeded to 
 his father in 1249. Yet, when only two years older, he went 
 to York to meet with the English King, and to marry his 
 daughter, the Princess Margaret. On this occasion Henry en- 
 deavoured to revive the old claim of homage, which he insisted 
 should be rendered to him by the boy -bridegroom for all his 
 dominions. Alexander answered, with wisdom beyond his years, 
 that he was come to marry the Princess of England, and not 
 to treat of affairs of state ; and that he could not, and would
 
 38 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. V 
 
 not, enter upon the subject proposed, without advice of his 
 Parliament. 
 
 Upon another occasion, when visiting his father-in-law at 
 London, Alexander made it a condition of his journey, that he 
 should not be called upon to discuss any state affairs. In this, 
 and on other occasions, Alexander showed great willingness to 
 be on good terms with England, qualified by a sincere resolu- 
 tion that he would not sacrifice any part of the rights and 
 independence of his dominions. 
 
 In the days of Alexander III. Scotland was threatened with 
 a great danger, from the invasion of the Danes and the Nor- 
 wegians. I have told you before, that these northern people 
 were at this time wont to scour the seas with their vessels, 
 and to make descents and conquests where it suited them to 
 settle. England had been at one time conquered by them, 
 and France had been compelled to yield up to them the fine 
 provinces which, after their name, were called Normandy. 
 The Scots, whose country was at once poor and mountainous, 
 had hitherto held these rovers at defiance. But in the year 
 1263 Haco, King of Norway, at the head of a powerful fleet 
 and army, came to invade and conquer the kingdom of Scotland. 
 Alexander, on his part, lost no time in assembling a great army, 
 and preparing for the defence of the country, in which he was 
 zealously seconded by most of his nobles. They were not all, 
 however, equally faithful, some of them had encouraged the 
 attempt of the invaders. 
 
 On the 1st October 1263 Haco, having arrived on the 
 western coast, commenced hostilities by making himself master 
 of the Islands of Bute and Arran, lying in the mouth of the 
 Firth of Clyde, and then appeared with his great navy off the 
 village of Largs, in Cunninghame. The Scots were in arms 
 to defend the shore, but Haco disembarked a great part of his 
 troops, and obtained some advantages over them. On the next 
 day, more Scottish troops having come up, the battle was re- 
 newed with great fury. Alexander, fighting in person at the 
 head of his troops, was wounded in the face by an arrow. 
 Alexander the Steward, a high officer in the Scottish court, 
 was killed. But the Danes lost the nephew of their king, 
 one of the most renowned champions in their host. While 
 the battle was still raging on shore, a furious tempest arose, 
 which drove the ships of the Danes and Norwegians from their
 
 1251-1266 BATTLE OF LARGS 39 
 
 anchorage ; many were shipwrecked on the coast, and the crews 
 were destroyed by the Scots, when they attempted to get upon 
 land. The soldiers, who had been disembarked, lost courage, 
 and retired before the Scots, who were hourly reinforced by 
 their countrymen coming from all . quarters. It was with the 
 utmost difficulty that Haco got the remnant of his scattered 
 forces on board of such vessels as remained. He retired to 
 the Orkney Islands, and there died, full of shame and sorrow 
 for the loss of his army, and the inglorious conclusion of his 
 formidable invasion. 
 
 The consequence of this victory was, that the King of the 
 Island of Man, who had been tributary to Haco, now submitted 
 himself to the King of Scotland ; and negotiations took place 
 betwixt Alexander III. and Magnus, who had succeeded Haco 
 in the throne of Norway, by which the latter resigned to the 
 King of Scotland (1266) all right to the islands on the western 
 side of Scotland, called the Hebrides. 
 
 The traces of the battle of Largs, a victory of so much con- 
 sequence to Scotland, are still to be found on the shores where 
 the action was fought. There are visible great rocks and heaps 
 of stones, beneath which lie interred the remains of the slain. 
 Human bones are found in great quantities, and also warlike 
 weapons, particularly axes, and swords, which being made of 
 brass, remain longer unconsumed than if they had been of iron 
 or steel like those now used. 
 
 Thus you see, Master Littlejohn, that down to the period 
 of which we speak, Scotland had been a powerful and victorious 
 nation, maintaining a more equal rank with England than could 
 have been expected from the different size and strength of the 
 two kingdoms, and repelling by force of arms those northern 
 people who had so long been the terror of Europe.
 
 40 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. VI 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Death of Alexander III. Margaret of Norway Interregnum Com- 
 petitors for the Crown Usurpation of Edward I. of England 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Henry III., Edward I. 
 France : Louis IX. , Philip IV. 
 
 1266 1296 
 
 SEVEN kings of Scotland, omitting one or two temporary 
 occupants of the throne, had reigned in succession after 
 Malcolm Canmore, the son of Duncan, who recovered the 
 kingdom from Macbeth. Their reigns occupied a period of 
 nearly two hundred years. Some of them were very able men ; 
 all of them were well-disposed, good sovereigns, and inclined to 
 discharge their duty towards their subjects. They made good 
 laws ; and, considering the barbarous and ignorant times they 
 lived in, they appear to have been men as deserving of praise 
 as any race of kings who reigned in Europe during that period. 
 Alexander, the third of that name, and the last of these seven 
 princes, was an excellent sovereign. He married, as I told 
 you in the last chapter, Margaret, daughter of Henry III. of 
 England ; but unhappily all the children who were born of 
 that marriage died before their father. After the death of 
 Queen Margaret, Alexander married another wife ; but he did 
 not live to have any family by her. As he was riding in the 
 dusk of the evening, along the sea-coast of Fife, betwixt Burnt- 
 island and Kinghorn, he approached too near the brink of the 
 precipice, and his horse starting or stumbling, he was thrown 
 over the rock, and killed on the spot. It is now no less than 
 five hundred and forty-two years since Alexander's death, yet 
 the people of the country still point out the very spot where 
 it happened, and which is called the King's Crag. The very 
 melancholy consequences which followed Alexander's decease 
 made the manner of it long remembered. A sort of elegy is also 
 preserved, in which his virtues, and the misfortunes that followed 
 his death, are recorded. It is the oldest specimen of the Scottish 
 language which is known to remain in existence ; but as you 
 would not understand it, I am obliged to alter it a little :
 
 1266-1286 DEATH OF ALEXANDER III. 41 
 
 When Alexander our king was dead, 
 
 Who Scotland led in love and le, 
 Away was wealth of ale and bread, 
 
 Of wine and wax, of game and glee. 
 
 Then pray to God, since only he 
 Can succour Scotland in her need, 
 
 That placed is in perplexity ! 
 
 Another legend says, that a wise man, who is called Thomas 
 the Rhymer, and about whom many stories are told, had said 
 to a great Scottish nobleman, called the Earl of March, that 
 the sixteenth day of March should be the stormiest day that 
 ever was witnessed in Scotland. The day came, and was 
 remarkably clear, mild, and temperate. But while they were 
 all laughing at Thomas the Rhymer on account of his false 
 prophecy, an express brought the news of the King's death. 
 " There," said Thomas, " that is the storm which I meant ; and 
 there was never tempest which will bring more ill luck to 
 Scotland." This story may very possibly be false; but the 
 general belief in it serves to show that the death of Alexander 
 the Third was looked upon as an event of the most threatening 
 and calamitous nature. 
 
 The full consequences of the evil were not visible at first ; 
 for, although all Alexander's children had, as we have already 
 said, died before him, yet one of them, who had been married 
 to Eric, King of Norway, had left a daughter named Margaret, 
 upon whom, as the grand-daughter and nearest heir of the 
 deceased prince, the crown of Scotland devolved. The young 
 princess, called by our historians, the Maid of Norway, was 
 residing at her father's court. 
 
 While the crown of Scotland thus passed to a young girl, 
 the King of England began to consider by what means he 
 could so avail himself of circumstances, as to unite it with his 
 own. This king was Edward, called the First, because he was 
 the first of the Norman line of princes so named. He was a 
 very brave man, and a good soldier, wise, skilful, and 
 prudent, but unhappily very ambitious, and desirous of extend- 
 ing his royal authority, without caring much whether he did 
 so by right means or by those which were unjust. And 
 although it is a great sin to covet that which does not belong 
 to you, and a still greater to endeavour to possess yourself of 
 it by any unfair practices, yet his desire of adding the kingdom
 
 42 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. VI 
 
 of Scotland to that of England was so great, that Edward was 
 unable to resist it. 
 
 The mode by which the English King at first endeavoured 
 to accomplish his object was a very just one. He proposed a 
 marriage betwixt the Maiden of Norway, the young Queen of 
 Scotland, and his owr. eldest son, called Edward, after himself. 
 A treaty was entered into for this purpose ; and had the 
 marriage been effected, and been followed by children, the 
 union of England and Scotland might have taken place more 
 than three hundred years sooner than it did, and an immeasur- 
 able quantity of money and bloodshed would probably have 
 been saved. But it was not the will of Heaven that this 
 desirable union should be accomplished till many long years of 
 war and distress had afflicted both these nations. The young 
 Queen of Scotland sickened and died, and the treaty for the 
 marriage was ended with her life. 1 
 
 The kingdom of Scotland was troubled, and its inhabitants 
 sunk into despair, at the death of their young princess. There 
 was not any descendant of Alexander III. remaining, who 
 could be considered as his direct and undeniable heir : and 
 many of the great nobles, who were more or less distantly 
 related to the royal family, prepared each of them to assert a 
 right to the crown, began to assemble forces and form parties, 
 and threatened the country with a civil war, which is the 
 greatest of all misfortunes. The number of persons who set 
 up claims to the crown was no fewer than twelve, all of them 
 forming pretensions on some relationship, more or less distant, 
 to the royal family. These claimants were most of them 
 powerful, from their rank and the number of their followers ; 
 and, if they should dispute the question of right by the sword, 
 it was evident that the whole country would be at war from 
 one sea to the other. 
 
 To prevent this great dilemma, it is said the Scottish nobil- 
 ity resolved to submit the question respecting the succession 
 of their kingdom to Edward I. of England, who was one of the 
 wisest princes of his time, and to request of him to settle, as 
 umpire, which of the persons claiming the throne of Scotland 
 had best right to be preferred to the others. The people of 
 Scotland are said to have sent ambassadors to Edward, to re- 
 
 1 She landed in Orkney, on her way to take possession of her crown, 
 and died there, Sept. 1290.
 
 1286-1291 COMPETITORS FOR THE CROWN 43 
 
 quest his interference as judge ; but he had already determined 
 to regulate the succession of the kingdom, not as a mere um- 
 pire, having no authority but from the desire of the parties, 
 but as himself a person principally concerned; and for this 
 purpose he resolved to revive the old pretext of his having 
 right to the feudal sovereignty of Scotland, which, as we have 
 before seen, had been deliberately renounced by his generous 
 predecessor, Richard I. 
 
 With this secret and unjust purpose, Edward of England 
 summoned the nobility and clergy of Scotland to meet him at 
 the castle of Norham, a large and strong fortress, which stands 
 on the English side of the Tweed, on the line where that river 
 divides England from Scotland. They met there on the 10th 
 May 1291, and were presented to the King of England, who 
 received them in great state, surrounded by the high officers of 
 his court. He was a very handsome man, and so tall, that he 
 was popularly known by the name of Longshanks, that is, long 
 legs. The Justiciary of England then informed the nobility 
 and clergy of Scotland, in King Edward's name, that before 
 he could proceed to decide who should be the vassal King ot 
 Scotland, it was necessary that they should acknowledge the 
 King of England's right as lord paramount, or sovereign of 
 that kingdom. 
 
 The nobles and churchmen of Scotland were surprised to hear 
 the King of England propose a claim which had never been ad- 
 mitted, except for a short time, in order to procure the freedom 
 of King William the Lion, and which had been afterwards re- 
 nounced for ever by Richard I. They refused to give any 
 answer until they should consult together by themselves. " By 
 St. Edward ! " said the King, " whose crown I wear, I will make 
 good my just rights, or perish in the attempt ! " He then dis- 
 missed the assembly, allowing the Scots a delay of three weeks, 
 however, to accede to his terms. 
 
 The Scottish nobility being thus made aware of King Ed- 
 ward's selfish and ambitious designs, ought to have assembled 
 their forces together, and declared that they would defend the 
 rights and independence of their country. But they were 
 much divided among themselves, and without any leader ; and 
 the competitors who laid claim to the crown were mean-spirited 
 enough to desire to make favour with King Edward, in expec- 
 tation that he would raise to the throne him whom he should
 
 44 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. VI 
 
 find most willing to subscribe to his own claims of paramount 
 superiority. 
 
 Accordingly, the second assembly of the Scottish nobility 
 and clergy took place without any one having dared to state 
 any objection to what the King of England proposed, however 
 unreasonable they knew his pretensions to be. They were 
 assembled in a large open plain, called Upscttlington, opposite 
 to the castle of Norhain, but on the northern or Scottish side 
 of the river. The Chancellor of England then demanded of 
 such of the candidates as were present, whether they acknow- 
 ledged the King of England as Lord Paramount of Scotland, 
 and whether they were willing to receive and hold the crown 
 of Scotland as awarded by Edward in that character. They 
 all answered that they were willing to do so ; and thus, rather 
 than hazard their own claims by offending King Edward, 
 these unworthy candidates consented to resign the independ- 
 ence of their country, which had been so long and so bravely 
 defended. 
 
 Upon examining the claims of the candidates, the right of 
 succession to the throne of Scotland was found to lie chiefly 
 betwixt Robert Bruce, the Lord of Annaudale, and John Baliol, 
 who was the Lord of Galloway. Both were great and power- 
 ful barons ; both were of Norman descent, and had great 
 estates in England as well as Scotland ; lastly, both were de- 
 scended from the Scottish royal family, and each by a daughter 
 of David, Earl of Huntingdon, brother of William the Lion. 
 Edward, upon due consideration, declared Baliol to be King 
 of Scotland, as being son of Margaret, the eldest of the two 
 sisters. But he declared that the kingdom was always to be 
 held under him as the lord paramount, or sovereign thereof. 
 John Baliol closed the disgraceful scene by doing homage to 
 the King of England, and acknowledging that he was his liege 
 vassal and subject. This remarkable event took place on 20th 
 November 1292. 
 
 Soon after this remarkable, and to Scotland most shameful 
 transaction, King Edward began to show to Baliol that it was 
 not his purpose to be satisfied with a bare acknowledgment of 
 his right of sovereignty, but that he was determined to exer- 
 cise it with severity on every possible occasion. He did this, 
 no doubt, on purpose to provoke the dependent king to some 
 act of resistance which should give him a pretext for depriving
 
 1291-1296 USURPATION OF EDWARD I. 45 
 
 him of the kingdom altogether as a disobedient subject, and 
 taking it under his own government in his usurped character of 
 lord paramount. The King of England, therefore, encouraged 
 the Scottish subjects to appeal from the courts of Baliol to his 
 own ; and as Baliol declined making appearance in the English 
 tribunals, or answering there for the sentences which he had 
 pronounced in his capacity of King of Scotland, Edward insisted 
 upon having possession of three principal fortresses of Scotland 
 Berwick, Roxburgh, and Jedburgh. 
 
 Baliol surrendered, or at least agreed to surrender, these 
 castles ; but the people murmured against this base compliance, 
 and Baliol himself, perceiving that it was Edward's intention 
 gradually to destroy his power, was stung at once with shame 
 and fear, and entering into a league with France, raised a great 
 army, for the purpose of invading England, the dominions of 
 the prince whom he had so lately acknowledged his lord para- 
 mount, or sovereign. At the same time he sent a letter to 
 Edward, formally renouncing his dependence upon him. 1 Ed- 
 ward replied in Norman-French, " Ha ! dares this idiot com- 
 mit such folly ? Since he will not attend on us, as is his duty, 
 we will go to him." 
 
 The King of England accordingly assembled a powerful 
 army, amongst which came Bruce, who had formerly contended 
 for the crown of Scotland with Baliol, and who now hoped to 
 gain it upon his forfeiture. Edward defeated the Scottish 
 army in a great battle near Dunbar, and Baliol, who appears 
 to have been a mean-spirited man, gave up the con- 
 test. He came before Edward in the castle of Rox- 
 burgh, and there made a most humiliating submission. 
 He appeared in a mean dress, without sword, royal robes, or 
 arms of any kind, and bearing in his hand a white wand. He 
 there confessed that through bad counsel and folly he had re- 
 belled against his liege lord, and, in atonement, he resigned the 
 kingdom of Scotland, with the inhabitants, and all right which 
 he possessed to their obedience and duty, to their liege lord, 
 King Edward. He was then permitted to retire uninjured. 
 
 1 "The reasons assigned by Baliol were : 1. That Edward had wan- 
 tonly, and upon slight suggestions, summoned Baliol to his courts. 2. 
 Had seized his English estates. 3. Had seized his goods and the goods 
 of his subjects. 4. Had forcibly carried off, and still detained, certain 
 natives of Scotland" (April 1296). HATI.ES.
 
 46 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP, vi 
 
 Baliol being thus removed, Bruce expressed his hopes oi 
 being allowed to supply his place, as tributary or dependent 
 King of Scotland. But Edward answered him sternly, " Have 
 we nothing, think you, to do, but to conquer kingdoms for 
 you?" By which words the English King plainly expressed 
 that he intended to keep Scotland to himself; and he proceeded 
 to take such measures as made his purpose still more evident. 
 
 Edward marched through Scotland at the head of a power- 
 ful army, compelling all ranks of people to submit to him. 
 He removed to London the records of the kingdom of Scotland, 
 and was at the pains to transport to the Abbey Church at 
 Westminster a great stone, upon which it had been the national 
 custom to place the King of Scotland when he was crowned 
 for the first time. He did this to show that he was absolute 
 master of Scotland, and that the country was in future to 
 have no other king but himself, and his descendants the Kings 
 of England. The stone is still preserved, and to this day 
 the King's throne is placed upon it at the time when he is 
 crowned. 1 Last of all, King Edward placed the government 
 of Scotland in the hands of John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, 
 a brave nobleman ; of Hugh Cressingham, a clergyman, whom 
 he named chief treasurer ; and of William Ormesby, whom he 
 appointed the chief judge of the kingdom. He placed English 
 soldiers in all the castles and strongholds of Scotland, from the 
 one end of the kingdom to the other ; and not trusting the 
 
 1 "This fatal stone was said to have been brought from Ireland by 
 Fergus, the son of Eric, who led the Dalriads to the shores of Argyle- 
 shire. Its virtues are preserved in the celebrated leonine verse 
 
 ' Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocunque locatum 
 Invenieiit lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem. 
 
 Which may be rendered thus : 
 
 Unless the fates are faithless found, 
 
 And prophets' voice be vain, 
 Where'er this monument is found 
 
 The Scottish race shall reign. 
 
 There were Scots who hailed the accomplishment of this prophecy at the 
 accession of James VI. to the crown of England, and exulted, that in 
 removing this palladium, the policy of Edward resembled that which 
 brought the Trojan horse in triumph within their walls, and which oc- 
 casioned the destruction of their royal family. The stone is still pre- 
 served, and forms the support of King Edward the Confessor's chair, which 
 the Sovereign occupies at his coronation, and, independent of the divina- 
 tion so long in being accomplished, is in itself a very curious remnant of 
 extreme antiquity." SIR WALTER SCOTT, Lardntrs Cyclopaedia.
 
 1296 SIR WILLIAM WALLACE 47 
 
 Scots themselves, he appointed English governors in most of 
 the provinces of the kingdom. 
 
 We may here remark, my dear child, that a little before he 
 thus subdued Scotland, this same Edward I. had made conquest 
 of Wales, that mountainous part of the island of Britain into 
 which the Britons had retreated from the Saxons, and where, 
 until the reign of this artful and ambitious prince, they had 
 been able to maintain their independence. In subduing Wales, 
 Edward had acted as treacherously, and more cruelly, than he 
 had done in Scotland ; since he had hanged the last Prince of 
 Wales, when he became his prisoner, for no other crime than 
 because he defended his country against the English, who had 
 no right to it. Perhaps Edward thought to himself that, by 
 uniting the whole island of Britain under one king and one 
 government, he would do so much good by preventing future 
 wars, as might be an excuse for the force and fraud which he 
 made use of to bring about his purpose. But, my dear child, 
 God, who sees into our hearts, will not bless those measures 
 which are wicked in themselves, because they are used under a 
 pretence of bringing about that which is good. We must not 
 do evil even that good may come of it ; and the happy prospect 
 that England and Scotland would be united under one govern- 
 ment, was so far from being brought nearer by Edward's un- 
 principled usurpation, that the hatred and violence of national 
 antipathy which arose betwixt the sister countries, removed to 
 a distance almost incalculable, the prospect of their becoming 
 one people, for which nature seemed to design them. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Sir William Wallace 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Edward I. 
 France : Philip IV. 
 
 12961305 
 
 I TOLD you, my dear Hugh, that Edward I. of England had 
 reduced Scotland almost entirely to the condition of a con- 
 quered country, although he had obtained possession of the
 
 48 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. VII 
 
 kingdom, less by his bravery, than by cunningly taking advan- 
 tage of the disputes and divisions that followed amongst the 
 Scots themselves after the death of Alexander III. 
 
 The English, however, had in point of fact obtained posses- 
 sion of the country, and governed it with much rigour. The 
 Lord High Justice Ormesby called all men to account, who 
 would not take the oath of allegiance to King Edward. Many 
 of the Scots refused this, as what the English King had no 
 right to demand from them. Such persons were called into the 
 courts of justice, fined, deprived of their estates, and otherwise 
 severely punished. Then Hugh Cressingham, the English 
 treasurer, tormented the Scottish nation by collecting money 
 from them under various pretexts. The Scots were always a 
 poor people, and their native kings had treated them with much 
 kindness, and seldom required them to pay any taxes. They 
 were, therefore, extremely enraged at finding themselves obliged 
 to pay to the English treasurer much larger sums of money than 
 their own good kings had ever demanded from them ; and they 
 became exceedingly dissatisfied. 
 
 Besides these modes of oppression, the English soldiers, who, 
 I told you, had been placed in garrison in the different castles 
 of Scotland, thought themselves masters of the country, treated 
 the Scots with great contempt, took from them by main force 
 whatever they had a fancy to, and if the owners offered to re- 
 sist, abused them, beat and wounded, and sometimes killed 
 them ; for which acts of violence the English officers did not 
 check or punish their soldiers. Scotland was, therefore, in 
 great distress, and the inhabitants, exceedingly enraged, only 
 wanted some leader to command them, to rise up in a body 
 against the English or Southern men, as they called them, and 
 recover the liberty and independence of their country, which 
 had been destroyed by Edward the First. 
 
 Such a leader arose in the person of WILLIAM WALLACE, 
 whose name is still so often mentioned in Scotland. It is a 
 great pity we do not know exactly the history of this brave 
 man ; for at the time when he lived, every one was so busy 
 fighting, that there was no person to write down the history 
 of what took place ; and afterwards, when there was more 
 leisure for composition, the truths that were collected were 
 greatly mingled with falsehood. What I shall tell you of him 
 is generally believed to be true.
 
 1296-7 SIR WILLIAM WALLACE 49 
 
 William Wallace was none of the high nobles of Scotland, 
 but the son of a private gentleman, called Wallace of Ellerslie, 
 in Renfrewshire, near Paisley. He was very tall and handsome, 
 and one of the strongest and bravest men that ever lived. He 
 had a very fine countenance, with a quantity of fair hair, and 
 was particularly dexterous in the use of all weapons which were 
 then employed in battle. Wallace, like all Scotsmen of high 
 spirit, had looked with great indignation upon the usurpation 
 of the crown by Edward, and upon the insolences which the 
 English soldiers committed on his countrymen. It is said, 
 that when he was very young, he went a-fishing for sport in 
 the river of Irvine, near Ayr. He had caught a good many 
 trouts, which were carried by a boy, who attended him with a 
 fishing-basket, as is usual with anglers. Two or three English 
 soldiers who belonged to the garrison of Ayr came up to 
 Wallace, and insisted, with their usual insolence, on taking the 
 fish from the boy. Wallace was contented to allow them a 
 part of the trouts, but he refused to part with the whole basket- 
 ful. The soldiers insisted, and from words came to blows. 
 Wallace had no better weapon than the butt-end of his fishing- 
 rod ; but he struck the foremost of the Englishmen so hard 
 under the ear with it, that he killed him on the spot; and 
 getting possession of the slain man's sword, he fought with so 
 much fury that he put the others to flight, and brought home 
 his fish safe and sound. The English governor of Ayr sought 
 for him, to punish him with death for this action ; but Wallace 
 lay concealed among the hills and great woods till the matter 
 was forgotten, and then appeared in another part of the country. 
 He is said to have had other adventures of the same kind, in 
 which he gallantly defended himself, sometimes when alone, 
 sometimes with very few companions, against superior numbers 
 of the English, until at last his name became generally known 
 as a terror to them. 
 
 But the action which occasioned his finally rising in arms is 
 believed to have happened in the town of Lanark. Wallace 
 was at this time married to a lady of that place, and residing 
 there with his wife. It chanced, as he walked in the market- 
 place, dressed in a green garment, with a rich dagger by his 
 side, that an Englishman came up and insulted him on account 
 of his finery, saying, a Scotsman had no business to wear so 
 gay a dress, or carry so handsome a weapon. It soon came to 
 
 i 4
 
 50 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. VII 
 
 a quarrel, as on many former occasions ; and Wallace, having 
 killed the Englishman, fled to his own house, which was speedily 
 assaulted by all the English soldiers. While they were en- 
 deavouring to force their way in at the front of the house 
 Wallace escaped by a back-door, and got in safety to a rugged 
 and rocky glen, near Lanark, called the Cartland crags, all 
 covered with bushes and trees, and full of high precipices, 
 where he knew he should be safe from the pursuit of the 
 English soldiers. 1 In the meantime the governor of Lanark, 
 whose name was Hazelrigg, burned Wallace's house, and put 
 his wife and servants to death ; and by committing this cruelty 
 increased to the highest pitch, as you may well believe, the 
 hatred which the champion had always borne against the 
 English usurper. Hazelrigg also proclaimed Wallace an outlaw, 
 and offered a reward to any one who should bring him to an 
 English garrison, alive or dead. 
 
 On the other hand, Wallace soon collected a body of men, 
 outlawed like himself, or willing to become so, rather than any 
 longer endure the oppression of the English. One of his earliest 
 expeditions was directed against Hazelrigg, whom he killed, 
 and thus avenged the death of his wife. He fought skirmishes 
 with the soldiers who were sent against him, and often defeated 
 them ; and in time became so well known and so formidable 
 that multitudes began to resort to his standard, until at length 
 he was at the head of a considerable army, with which he pro- 
 posed to restore his country to independence. , 
 
 About this time is said to have taken place a memorable 
 event, which the Scottish people called the Barns of Ayr. It 
 is alleged that the English governor of Ayr had invited the 
 greater part of the Scottish nobility and gentry in the western 
 parts to meet him at some large buildings called the Barns of 
 Ayr, for the purpose of friendly conference upon the affairs of 
 the nation. But the English earl entertained the treacherous 
 purpose of putting the Scottish gentlemen to death. The 
 English soldiers had halters with running nooses ready prepared, 
 and hung upon the beams which supported the roof; and, as 
 the Scottish gentlemen were admitted by two and two at a 
 time, the nooses were thrown over their heads, and they were 
 
 1 In the western face of the chasm of Cartlaud crags, a few yards above 
 the new bridge, a cave in the rock is pointed out by tradition as having 
 been the hiding-place of Wallace.
 
 1297 
 
 SIR WILLIAM WALLACE 51 
 
 pulled up by the neck, and thus hanged or strangled to death. 
 Among those who were slain in this base and treacherous 
 manner was, it is said, Sir Reginald Crawford, Sheriff of the 
 county of Ayr, and uncle to William Wallace. 
 
 When Wallace heard of what had befallen he was dreadfully 
 enraged, and collecting his men in a wood near the town of 
 Ayr, he resolved to be revenged on the authors of this great 
 crime. The English in the meanwhile made much feasting, 
 and when they had eaten and drunk plentifully, they lay down 
 to sleep in the same large barns in which they had murdered 
 the Scottish gentlemen. But Wallace, learning that they kept 
 no guard or watch, not suspecting there were any enemies so 
 near them, directed a woman who knew the place to mark 
 with chalk the doors of the lodgings where the Englishmen 
 lay. Then he sent a party of men, who, with strong ropes, 
 made all the doors so fast on the outside that those within 
 could not open them. On the outside the Scots had prepared 
 heaps of straw, to which they set fire, and the barns of Ayr, 
 being themselves made of wood, were soon burning in a bright 
 flame. Then the English were awakened, and endeavoured 
 to get out to save their lives. But the doors, as I told you, 
 were secured on the outside, and bound fast with ropes ; and, 
 besides, the blazing houses were surrounded by the Scots, who 
 forced those who got out to run back into the fire, or else put 
 them to death on the spot ; and thus great numbers perished 
 miserably. Many of the English were lodged in a convent, 
 but they had no better fortune than the others ; for the prior 
 of. the convent caused all the friars to arm themselves, and, 
 attacking the English guests, they put most of them to the 
 sword. This was called the " Friar of Ayr's blessing." We 
 cannot tell if this story of the Barns of Ayr be exactly true ; 
 but it is probable there is some foundation for it, as it is uni- 
 versally believed in that country 
 
 Thus Wallace's party grew daily stronger and stronger, and 
 many of the Scottish nobles joined with him. Among these 
 were Sir William Douglas, the. Lord of Douglas-dale, and the 
 head of a great family often mentioned in Scottish history. 
 There was also Sir John the Grahaine, who became Wallace's 
 bosom friend and greatest confident. Many of these great 
 noblemen, however, deserted the cause of the country on the 
 approach of John de Wareune, Earl of Surrey, the English.
 
 52 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER C HAP. VII 
 
 governor, at the head of a numerous and well-appointed army. 
 They thought that Wallace would be unable to withstand the 
 attack of so many disciplined soldiers, and hastened to submit 
 themselves to the English, for fear of losing their estates. 
 Wallace, however, remained undismayed, and at the head of a 
 considerable army. He had taken up his camp upon the north- 
 ern side of the river Forth, near the town of Stirling. The 
 river was there crossed by a long wooden bridge, about a mile 
 above the spot where the present bridge is situated. 
 
 The English general approached the banks of the river on 
 the southern side. He sent two clergymen to offer a pardon 
 to Wallace and his followers, on condition that they should lay 
 down their arms. But such was not the purpose of the high- 
 minded champion of Scotland. 
 
 "Go back to Warenne," said Wallace, "and tell him we 
 value not the pardon of the King of England. We are not 
 here for the purpose of treating of peace, but of abiding battle, 
 and restoring freedom to our country. Let the English come 
 on ; we defy them to their very beards ! " 
 
 The English, upon hearing this haughty answer, called 
 loudly to be led to the attack. Their leader, Sir Richard 
 Lundin, a Scottish knight, who had gone over to the enemy at 
 Irvine, hesitated, for he was a skilful soldier, and he saw that, to 
 approach the Scottish army, his troops must pass over the long, 
 narrow wooden bridge ; so that those who should get over first 
 might be attacked by Wallace with all his forces, before those 
 who remained behind could possibly come to their assistance. 
 He therefore inclined to delay the battle. But Cressingham 
 the treasurer, who was ignorant and presumptuous, insisted 
 that it was their duty to fight, and put an end to the war at 
 once ; and Lundin gave way to his opinion, although Cressing- 
 ham, being a churchman, could not be so good a judge of what 
 was fitting a? he himself, an experienced officer. 
 
 The English army began to cross the bridge, Cressingham 
 leading the van, or foremost division of the army ; for, in 
 those military days, even clergymen wore armour and fought in 
 battle. That took place which Lundin had foreseen. Wallace 
 suffered a considerable part of the English army to pass the 
 bridge,, without offering any opposition ; but when about one- 
 half were over, and the bridge was crowded with those who 
 wore following, he charged those who had crossed with Ki.->
 
 1297 
 
 SIR WILLIAM WALLACE 53 
 
 whole strength, slew a very great number, and drove the rest 
 into the river Forth, where the greater part were drowned. 
 The remainder of the English army, who were left on the 
 southern batik of the river, fled in great confusion, having first 
 set fire to the wooden bridge that the Scots might not pursue 
 them. Cressingham was killed in the very beginning of the 
 battle ; and the Scots detested him so much, that they flayed 
 the skin from his dead body, and kept pieces of it, in memory 
 of the revenge they had taken upon the English treasurer. 
 Some say they made saddle-girths of this same skin ; a purpose 
 for which I do not think it could be very fit. It must be 
 owned to have been a dishonourable thing of the Scots to insult 
 thus the dead body of their enemy, and shows that they must 
 have been then a ferocious and barbarous people. 
 
 The remains of Surrey's great army fled out of Scotland 
 after this defeat ; and the Scots, taking arms on all sides, 
 attacked the castles in which the English soldiers 
 continued to shelter themselves, and took most 
 of them by force or stratagem. Many wonderful 
 stories are told of Wallace's exploits on these occasions ; some 
 of which are no doubt true, while others are either invented, 
 or very much exaggerated. It seems certain, however, that 
 he defeated the English in several combats, chased them almost 
 entirely out of Scotland, regained the towns and castles of 
 which they had possessed themselves, and recovered for a time 
 the complete freedom of the country. He even marched into 
 England, and laid Cumberland and Northumberland waste, 
 where the Scottish soldiers, in revenge for the mischief which 
 the English had done in their country, committed great cruel- 
 ties. Wallace did not approve of their killing the people who 
 were not in arms, and he endeavoured to protect the clergymen 
 and others, who were not able to defend themselves. "Re- 
 main with me," he said to the priests of Hexhanv a large town 
 in Northumberland, " for I cannot protect you from my soldiers 
 when you are out of my presence." The troops who followed 
 Wallace received no pay, because he had no money to give 
 them ; and that was one great reason why he could not keep 
 them under restraint, or prevent their doing much harm to the 
 defenceless country people. He remained in England more 
 than three weeks, and did a great deal of mischief to the 
 country.
 
 54 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. Vll 
 
 Indeed, it appears, that, though Wallace disapproved of slay- 
 ing priests, women, and children, he partook of the ferocity of 
 the times so much as to put to death without quarter all whom 
 he found in arms. In the north of Scotland, the English had 
 placed a garrison in the strong castle of Dunnottar, which, 
 built on a large and precipitous rock, overhangs the raging sea. 
 Though the place is almost inaccessible, Wallace and his fol- 
 lowers found their way into the castle, while the garrison in 
 great terror fled into the church or chapel, which was built on 
 the very verge of the precipice. This did not save them, for 
 Wallace caused the church to be set on fire. The terrified 
 garrison, involved in the flames, ran some of them upon the 
 points of the Scottish swords, while others threw themselves 
 from the precipice into the sea, and swam along to the cliffs, 
 where they hung like sea-fowl, screaming in vain for mercy and 
 assistance. 
 
 The followers of Wallace were frightened at this dreadful 
 scene, and falling on their knees before the priests who chanced 
 to be in the army, they asked forgiveness for having committed 
 so much slaughter within the limits of a church dedicated to 
 the service of God. But Wallace had so deep a sense of the 
 injuries which the English had done to his country, that he 
 only laughed at the contrition of his soldiers " I will absolve 
 you all myself," he said. "Are you Scottish soldiers, and 
 do you repent for a trifle like this, which is not half what the 
 invaders deserved at our hands?" So deep-seated was Wal- 
 lace's feeling of national resentment, that it seems to have 
 overcome, in such instances, the scruples of a temper which 
 was naturally humane. 
 
 Edward I. was in Flanders when all these events took place. 
 You may suppose he was very angry when he learned that 
 Scotland, which he thought completely subdued, had risen into 
 a great insurrection against him, defeated his armies, killed his 
 treasurer, chased his soldiers out of their country, and invaded 
 England with a great force. He came back from Flanders in 
 a mighty rage, and determined not to leave that rebellious 
 country until it was finally conquered ; for which purpose he 
 assembled a very fine army, and marched into Scotland. 
 
 In the meantime the Scots prepared to defend themselves, 
 and chose Wallace to be Governor, or Protector of the king- 
 dom, because they had no King at the time. He was now
 
 1297-8 SIR WILLIAM WALLACE 55 
 
 titled Sir William Wallace, Protector, or Governor of the 
 Scottish nation. But although Wallace, as we have seen, was 
 the best soldier and bravest man in Scotland, and therefore the 
 most fit to be placed in command at this critical period, when 
 the King of England was coming against them with such great 
 forces, yet the nobles of Scotland envied him this important 
 situation, because he was not a man born in high rank, or en- 
 joying a large estate. So great was their jealousy of Sir Wil- 
 liam Wallace, that many of these great barons did not seem 
 very willing to bring forward their forces, or fight against the 
 English, because they would not have a man of inferior con- 
 dition to be general. This was base and mean conduct, and it 
 was attended with great disasters to Scotland. 1 Yet, notwith- 
 standing this unwillingness of the great nobility to support 
 him, Wallace assembled a large army ; for the middling, but 
 especially the lower classes, were very much attached to him. 
 He marched boldly against the King of England, and met him 
 near the town of Falkirk. Most of the Scottish army were 
 on foot, because, as I already told you, in those days only the 
 nobility and great men of Scotland fought on horseback. The 
 English King, on the contrary, had a very large body of the 
 finest cavalry hi the world, Normans and English, all clothed 
 in complete armour. He had also the celebrated archers of 
 England, each of whom was said to carry twelve Scotsmen's 
 lives under his girdle ; because every archer had twelve arrows 
 stuck in his belt, and was expected to kill a man with every 
 arrow. 
 
 The Scots had some good archers from the Forest of Ettrick, 
 who fought under command of Sir John Stewart of Bonkill ; 
 but they were not nearly equal in number to the English. The 
 greater part of the Scottish army were on foot, armed with 
 long spears ; they were placed thick and close together, and 
 laid all their spears so close, point over point, that it seemed 
 as difficult to break through them as through the wall of a 
 strong castle. When the two armies were drawn up facing 
 
 1 " These mean and selfish jealousies were increased by the terror of Ed- 
 ward's military renown, and in many by the fear of losing their English 
 estates ; so that at the very time when an honest love of liberty, and a 
 simultaneous spirit of resistance, could alone have saved Scotland, its 
 nobility deserted it at its utmost need, and refused to act with the only 
 man whose military talents and prosperity were equal to the emergency." 
 TYTLKR'S History of Scotland.
 
 56 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP, vil 
 
 each other, Wallace said to his soldiers, " I have brought you 
 to the ring, let me see how you can dance ;" meaning, I have 
 brought you to the decisive field of battle, let me see how 
 bravely you can fight. 
 
 The English made the attack. King Edward, though he 
 saw the close ranks and undaunted appearance ot the Scottish 
 infantry, resolved nevertheless to try whether he could not 
 ride them down with his fine cavalry. He therefore gave his 
 horsemen orders to advance. They charged accordingly, at 
 full gallop. It must have been a terrible thing to have seen 
 these fine horses riding as hard as they could against the long 
 lances, which were held out by the Scots to keep them back ; 
 and a dreadful cry arose when they came against each other. 
 
 The first line of cavalry was commanded by the Earl Marshal 
 of England, whose progress was checked by a morass. The 
 second line of English horse was commanded by Antony Beck, 
 the Bishop of Durham, who, nevertheless, wore armour, and 
 fought like a lay baron. He wheeled round the morass ; but 
 when he saw the deep and firm order of the Scots, his heart 
 failed, and he proposed to Sir Ralph Basset of Dray ton, who 
 commanded under him, to halt till Edward himself brought up 
 the reserve. " Go say your mass, bishop," answered Basset 
 contemptuously, and advanced at full gallop with the second 
 line. However, the Scots stood their ground with their long 
 spears ; many of the foremost of the English horses were thrown 
 down, and the riders were killed as they lay rolling, unable to 
 rise, owing to the weight of their heavy armour. But the 
 Scottish horse did not come to the assistance of their infantry, 
 but, on the contrary, fled away from the battle. It is supposed 
 that this was owing to the treachery or ill-will of the nobility, 
 who were jealous of Wallace. But it must be considered that the 
 Scottish cavalry were few in number ; and that they had much 
 worse arms, and weaker horses, than their enemies. The English 
 cavalry attempted again and again to disperse the deep and solid 
 ranks in which Wallace had stationed his foot soldiers. But 
 they were repeatedly beaten off with loss, nor could they make 
 their way through that wood of spears, as it is called by one of 
 the English historians. King Edward then commanded his 
 archers to advance ; and these approaching within arrow-shot 
 of the Scottish ranks, poured on them such close and dreadful 
 volleys of arrows that it was impossible to sustain the discharge
 
 1298 SIR WILLIAM WALLACE 57 
 
 It happened at the same time, that Sir John Stewart was killed 
 by a fall from his horse ; and the archers of Ettrick Forest, 
 whom he was bringing forward to oppose those of King Ed- 
 ward, were slain in great numbers around him. Their bodies 
 were afterwards distinguished among the slain, as being the 
 tallest and handsomest men of the army. 
 
 The Scottish 'spearmen being thus thrown into some degree 
 of confusion, by the loss of those who were slain by the arrows 
 of the English, the heavy cavalry of Edward again charged 
 with more success than formerly, and broke through the ranks, 
 which were already disordered. Sir John Grahame, Wallace's 
 great friend and companion, was slain, with many other brave 
 soldiers; and the Scots, having lost a very great number of 
 men, were at length obliged to take to flight. 
 
 This fatal battle was fought upon 22d July 1298. Sir John 
 the Grahame lies buried in the churchyard of Falkirk. A 
 tombstone was laid over him, which has been three times re- 
 newed since his death. The inscription bears, " That Sir John 
 the Grahame, equally remarkable for wisdom and courage, and 
 the faithful friend of Wallace, being slain in battle by the 
 English, lies buried in this place." A large oak-tree in the 
 adjoining forest was long shown as marking the spot where 
 Wallace slept before the battle, or, as others said, in which he 
 hid himself after the defeat. Nearly forty years ago Grandpapa 
 saw some of its roots ; but the body of the tree was even then en- 
 tirely decayed, and there is not now, and has not been for many 
 years, the least vestige of it to be seen. 
 
 After this fatal defeat of Falkirk, Sir William Wallace seems 
 to have resigned his office of Governor of Scotland. Several 
 nobles were named guardians in his place, and continued to 
 make resistance to the English armies ; and they gained some 
 advantages, particularly near Roslin, where a body of Scots, 
 commanded by John Comyn of Badenoch, who was one of the 
 guardians of the kingdom, and another distinguished commander, 
 called Simon Fraser, defeated three armies, or detachments, of 
 English in one day. 
 
 Nevertheless, the King of England possessed so much wealth, 
 and so many means of raising soldiers, that he sent army after 
 army into the poor oppressed country of Scotland, and obliged 
 all its nobles and great men, one after another, to submit them- 
 selves once more to his yoke. Sir William Wallace, alone, or
 
 58 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. VII 
 
 with a very small band of followers, refused either to acknow- 
 ledge the usurper Edward or to lay down his arms. He con- 
 tinued to maintain himself among the woods and mountains of 
 his native country for no less than seven years after his defeat 
 at Falkirk, and for more than one year after all the other de- 
 fenders of Scottish liberty had laid down their arms. Many 
 proclamations were sent out against him by the English, and 
 a great reward was set upon his head ; for Edward did not 
 think he could have any secure possession of his usurped king- 
 dom of Scotland while Wallace lived. At length he was taken 
 prisoner ; and, shame it is to say, a Scotsman, called Sir John 
 Menteith, was the person by whom he was seized and delivered 
 to the English. It is generally said that he was made prisoner 
 at Robroyston, near Glasgow ; and the tradition of the country 
 bears that the signal made for rushing upon him and taking 
 him at unawares was, when one of his pretended friends, who 
 betrayed him, should turn a loaf, which was placed upon the 
 table, with its bottom or flat side uppermost. And in after 
 times it was reckoned ill-breeding to turn a loaf in that manner 
 if there was a person named Menteith in company ; since it 
 was as much as to remind him that his namesake had betrayed 
 Sir William Wallace, the Champion of Scotland. 
 
 Whether Sir John Menteith was actually the person by whom 
 Wallace was betrayed is not perfectly certain. He was, how- 
 ever, the individual by whom the patriot was made prisoner, 
 and delivered up to the English, for which his name and his 
 memory have been long loaded with disgrace. 
 
 Edward having thus obtained possession of the person whom 
 he considered as the greatest obstacle to his complete conquest 
 of Scotland, resolved to make Wallace an example to all 
 Scottish patriots who should in future venture to oppose his 
 ambitious projects. He caused this gallant defender of his 
 country to be brought to trial in Westminster hall, before the 
 English judges, and produced him there, crowned, in mockery, 
 with a green garland, because they said he had been king of 
 outlaws and robbers among the Scottish woods. Wallace was 
 accused of having been a traitor to the English crown ; to 
 which he answered, " I could not be a traitor to Edward, for I 
 was never his subject." He was then charged with having 
 taken and burnt towns and castles, with having killed many 
 men and done much violence. ?Ie replied with the same calm
 
 1298-1305 ROBERT THE BRUCE 59 
 
 resolution, " That it was true he had killed very many English- 
 men, but it was because they had come to subdue and oppress 
 his native country of Scotland ; and far from repenting what 
 he had done, he declared he was only sorry that he had not put 
 to death many more of them." 
 
 Notwithstanding that Wallace's defence was a good one, 
 both in law and in common sense (for surely every one has not 
 ouly a right to fight in defence of his native country, but is 
 bound in duty to do so), the English judges condemned him 
 to be executed. So this brave patriot was dragged upon a 
 sledge to the place of execution, where his head was 
 struck off, and his body divided into four quarters, 
 which, according to the cruel custom of the time, 
 were exposed upon spikes of iron on London Bridge, and were 
 termed the limbs of a traitor. 
 
 No doubt King Edward thought, that by exercising this 
 great severity towards so distinguished a patriot as Sir William 
 Wallace he should terrify all the Scots into obedience, and so 
 be able in future to reign over their country without resistance. 
 But though Edward was a powerful, a brave, and a wise king, 
 and though he took the most cautious, as well as the most 
 strict measures, to preserve the obedience of Scotland, yet his 
 claim being founded in injustice and usurpation, was not per- 
 mitted by Providence to be established in security or peace. 
 Sir William Wallace, that immortal supporter of the indepen- 
 dence of his country, was no sooner deprived of his life, in the 
 cruel and unjust manner I have told you, than other patriots 
 arose to assert the cause of Scottish liberty. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Robert the Bruce 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England-. Edward I., Edward II. 
 France : Philip IV. 
 
 I30SI3I4 
 
 I HOPE, my dear child, that you have not forgotten that all the 
 cruel wars in Scotland arose out of the debate between the
 
 60 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. VIII 
 
 great lords who claimed the throne after King Alexander the 
 Third's death, which induced the Scottish nobility rashly to 
 submit the decision of that matter to King Edward of England, 
 and thus opened the way to his endeavouring to seize the king- 
 dom of Scotland to himself. You recollect also, that Edward 
 had dethroned John Baliol, on account of his attempting to 
 restore the independence of Scotland, and that Baliol had re- 
 signed the crown of Scotland into the hands of Edward as lord 
 paramount. This John Baliol, therefore, was very little re- 
 spected in Scotland ; he had renounced the kingdom, and had 
 been absent from it for fifteen years, during the greater part 
 of which time he remained a prisoner in the hands of the King 
 of England. 
 
 It was therefore natural that such ot the people of Scotland 
 as were still determined to fight for the deliverance of their 
 country from the English yoke should look around for some 
 other king, under whom they might unite themselves, to com- 
 bat the power of England. The feeling was universal in 
 Scotland that they would not any longer endure the English 
 government ; and therefore such great Scottish nobles as be- 
 lieved they had right to the crown began to think of standing 
 forward to claim it. 
 
 Amongst these, the principal candidates (supposing John 
 Baliol, by his renunciation and captivity to have lost all right 
 to the kingdom) were two powerful noblemen. The first was 
 ROBERT BRUCE, Earl of Carrick, the grandson of that elder 
 Robert Bruce who, as you have heard, disputed the throne 
 with John Baliol. The other was John Comyn, or Cuming, of 
 Badenoch, 1 usually called the Red Comyn, to distinguish him 
 from his kinsman, the Black Comyn, so named from his swarthy 
 complexion. These two great and powerful barons had taken 
 part with Sir William Wallace in the wars against England ; 
 but, after the defeat of Falkirk, being fearful of losing their 
 great estates, and considering the freedom of Scotland as beyond 
 the possibility of being recovered, both Bruce and Comyn had 
 not only submitted themselves to Edward, and acknowledged 
 Ins title as king of Scotland, but even borne arms, along with 
 
 1 "He was the son of Marjory, sister of King John Baliol, by her 
 marriage with John Comyn of Badenoch, one of the competitors with 
 Buliol for the crown, but who afterwards withdrew his pretensions and 
 nip]'ort<:<1 the claim anl the government of Balio!."---'WooD's Peerage.
 
 1305-1306 ROBERT THE BRUCE 61 
 
 the English, against such of their countrymen as still continued 
 to resist the usurper. But the feelings of Bruce concerning the 
 baseness of this conduct are said, by the old traditions of 
 Scotland, to have beeii awakened by the following incident. In 
 one of the numerous battles, or skirmishes, which took place at 
 the time between the English and their adherents on the one 
 side, and the insurgent or patriotic Scots upon the other, 
 Robert the Bruce was present, and assisted the English to gain 
 the victory. After the battle was over, he sat down to dinner 
 among his southern friends and allies without washing his 
 hands, on which there still remained spots of the blood which 
 he had shed during the action. The English lords, observing 
 this, whispered to each other in mockery, " Look at that 
 Scotsman, who is eating his own blood !" Bruce heard what 
 they said, and began to reflect that the blood upon his hands 
 might be indeed called his own, since it was that of his brave 
 countrymen, who were fighting for the independence of Scotland, 
 whilst he was assisting its oppressors, who only laughed at and 
 mocked him for his unnatural conduct He was so much 
 shocked and disgusted that he arose from table, and, going 
 into a neighbouring chapel, shed many tears, and, asking pardon 
 of God for the great crime he had been guilty of, made a solemn 
 vow that he would atone for it by doing all in his power to 
 deliver Scotland from the foreign yoke. Accordingly, he left, 
 it is said, the English army, and never joined it again, but 
 remained watching an opportunity for restoring the freedom of 
 his country. 
 
 Now, this Robert the Bruce was a remarkably brave and 
 strong man : there was no man in Scotland that was thought 
 a match for him except Sir William Wallace ; and now that 
 Wallace was dead, Bruce was held the best warrior in Scotland. 
 He was very wise and prudent, and an excellent general : that 
 is, he knew how to conduct an army, and place them in order 
 for battle, as well or better than any great man of his time. 
 He was generous, too, and courteous by nature ; but he had 
 some faults, which perhaps belonged as much to the fierce 
 period in which he lived as to his own character. He was rash 
 and passionate, and in his passion he was sometimes relentless 
 and cruel. 
 
 Robert the Bruce had fixed his purpose, as I told you, to 
 attempt once again to drive the English out of Scotland, and
 
 62 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. VIII 
 
 he desired to prevail upon Sir John the Red Comyn, who was 
 his rival in his pretensions to the throne, to join with him in 
 expelling the foreign enemy by their common efforts. With 
 this purpose, Bruce posted down from London to Dumfries, on 
 the borders of Scotland, and requested an interview with John 
 Comyn. They met in the church of the Minorites in that 
 town, before the high altar. What passed betwixt them is not 
 known with certainty ; but they quarrelled, either concerning 
 their mutual pretensions to the crown, or because Comyn re- 
 fused to join Bruce in the proposed insurrection against the 
 English ; or, as many writers say, because Bruce charged Comyn 
 with having betrayed to the English his purpose of rising up 
 against King Edward. It is, however, certain that these two 
 haughty barons came to high and abusive words, until at length 
 Bruce, who, I told you, was extremely passionate, forgot the 
 sacred character of the place in which they stood, and struck 
 Comyn a blow with his dagger. Having done this rash deed, 
 he instantly ran out of the church and called for his horse. 
 Two gentlemen of the country, Lindesay and Kirkpatrick, 
 friends of Bruce, were then in attendance on him. Seeing him 
 pale, bloody, and in much agitation, they eagerly inquired what 
 was the matter. 
 
 " I doubt," said Bruce, " that I have slain the Red Comyn." 
 
 " Do you leave such a matter in doubt 1" said Kirkpatrick. 
 "I will make sicker !" that is, I will make certain. 
 
 Accordingly, he and his companion Liudesay rushed into 
 the church, aud made the matter certain with a vengeance, by 
 despatching the wounded Comyn with their daggers. His 
 uncle, Sir Robert Comyn, was slain at the same time. 
 
 This slaughter of Comyn was a rash and cruel action ; and 
 the historian of Bruce observes that it was followed by the 
 displeasure of Heaven ; for no man ever went through more 
 misfortunes than Robert Bruce, although he at length rose to 
 great honour. 
 
 After the deed was done, Bruce might be called desperate. 
 He had committed an action which was sure to bring down 
 upon him the vengeance of all Comyn's relations, the resent- 
 ment of the King of England, and the displeasure of the 
 Church, on account of having slain his enemy within consecrated 
 ground. He determined, therefore, to bid them all defiance at 
 once, and to assert his pretensions to the throne of Scotland.
 
 1306 ROBERT THE BRUCE 63 
 
 He drew his own followers together, summoned to meet him 
 such barons as still entertained hopes of the freedom of the 
 country, and was crowned King at the Abbey of Scone, the 
 usual place where the kings of Scotland assumed their 
 authority. 
 
 Everything relating to the ceremony was hastily performed. 
 A small circlet of gold was hurriedly made, to represent the 
 ancient crown of Scotland, which Edward had carried off to 
 England. The Earl of Fife, descendant of the brave Macduff, 
 whose duty it was to have placed the crowu on the King's 
 head, would not give his attendance. But the ceremonial was 
 performed by his sister, Isabella, Countess of Buchan, though 
 without the consent either of her brother or husband. A few 
 barons, whose names ought to be dear to their country, joined 
 Bruce in his attempt to vindicate the independence of Scotland. 
 
 Edward was dreadfully incensed when he heard that, after 
 all the pains which he had taken, and all the blood which had 
 been spilled, the Scots were making this new attempt to shake 
 off his authority. Though now old, feeble, and sickly, he made 
 a solemn vow, at a great festival, in presence of all his court, 
 that he would take the most ample vengeance upon Robert the 
 Bruce and his adherents ; after which he would never again 
 draw his sword upon a Christian, but would only fight against 
 the unbelieving Saracens for the recovery of the Holy Land. 
 He marched against Bruce accordingly, at the head of a power- 
 fid army. 
 
 The commencement of Bruce's undertaking was most dis- 
 astrous. He was crowned on 29th March 1306. On the 
 18th May he was excommunicated by the Pope, on account of 
 the murder of Comyn within consecrated ground, a sentence 
 which excluded him from all the benefits of religion, and 
 authorised any one to kill him. Finally, on the 19th June, the 
 new King was completely defeated near Methven by the English 
 Earl of Pembroke. Robert's horse was killed under him 
 in the action, and he was for a moment a prisoner. But he 
 had fallen into the power of a Scottish knight, who, though he 
 served in the English army, did not choose to be the instru- 
 ment of putting Bruce into their hands, and allowed him to 
 escape. The conquerors executed their prisoners with their 
 usual cruelty. Among these were some gallant young men 
 of the first Scottish families Hay, ancestor of the Earls of
 
 64 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. VI II 
 
 Errol, Somerville, Fraser, and others, who were mercilessly put 
 to death. 
 
 Bruce, with a few brave adherents, among whom was the 
 young Lord of Douglas, who was afterwards called the Good 
 Lord James, retired into the Highland mountains, where they 
 were chased from one place of refuge to another, often in great 
 danger, and suffering many hardships. The Bruce's wife, 
 now Queen of Scotland, with several other ladies, accompanied 
 her husband and his few followers during their wanderings. 
 There was no other way of providing for them save by hunt- 
 ing and fishing. It was remarked that Douglas was the most 
 active and successful in procuring for the unfortunate ladies 
 such supplies as his dexterity in fishing or in killing deer 
 could furnish them. 
 
 Driven from one place in the Highlands to another, starved 
 out of some districts, and forced from others by the opposition 
 of the inhabitants, Bruce attempted to force his way into 
 Lorn ; but he found enemies everywhere. The M'Dougals, 
 a powerful family, then called Lords of Lorn, were friendly 
 to the English, and putting their men in arms, attacked Bruce 
 and his wandering companions as soon as they attempted to 
 enter their territory. The chief of these M'Dougals, called 
 John of Lorn, hated Bruce on account of his having slain the 
 Red Comyn, to whom this M'Dougal was nearly related. 1 
 Bruce was again defeated by this chief, through force of num- 
 bers, at a place called Dairy ; but he showed, amidst his mis- 
 fortunes, the greatness of his strength and courage. He 
 directed his men to retreat through a narrow pass, and placing 
 himself last of the party, he fought with and slew such of the 
 enemy as attempted to press hard on them. Three followers 
 of M'Dougal, a father and two sons, called M'Androsser, all 
 very strong men, when they saw Bruce thus protecting the 
 retreat of his followers, made a vow that they would either 
 kill this redoubted champion or make him prisoner. The 
 whole three rushed on the King at once. Bruce was on 
 horseback, in the strait pass we have described, betwixt a pre- 
 cipitous rock and a deep lake. He struck the first roan who 
 came up, and seized his horse's rein, such a blow with his 
 sword, as cut off his hand and freed the bridle. The man bled 
 
 1 According to Wyntcwn, M'Dougal married the third daughter of 
 Comjn.
 
 1306-1314 ROBERT THE BRUCE 65 
 
 to death. The other brother had grasped Bruce in the mean- 
 time by the leg, and was attempting to throw him from horse- 
 back. The King, setting spurs to his horse, made the animal 
 suddenly spring forward, so that the Highlander fell under the 
 horse's feet ; and, as he was endeavouring to rise again, Bruce 
 cleft his head in two with his sword. The father, seeing his 
 two sons thus slain, flew desperately at the King, and grasped 
 him by the mantle so close to his body, that he could not have 
 room to wield his long sword. But with the heavy pommel 
 of that weapon, or, as others say, with an iron hammer which 
 hung at his saddle-bow, the King struck this third assailant so 
 dreadful a blow that he dashed out his brains. Still, however, 
 the Highlander kept hia dying grasp on the King's mantle; 
 so that, to be free of the dead body, Bruce was obliged to undo 
 the brooch, or clasp, by which it was fastened, and leave that, 
 and the mantle itself, behind him. The brooch, which fell thus 
 into the possession of M'Dougal of Lom, is still preserved in 
 that ancient family, as a memorial that the celebrated Robert 
 Bruce once narrowly escaped falling into the hands of their an- 
 cestor. 1 Robert greatly resented this attack upon him ; and when 
 he was in happier circumstances, did not fail to take his revenge 
 on M'Dougal, or, as he is usually called, John of Lorn. 
 
 The King met with many such encounters amidst his dan- 
 gerous and dismal wanderings; yet, though almost always 
 defeated by the superior numbers of the English, and of such 
 Scots as sided with them, he still kept up his own spirits and 
 those of his followers. He was a better scholar than was 
 usual in those days, when, except clergymen, few people re- 
 ceived much education. But King Robert had been well 
 instructed in the learning of the times ; and we are told that 
 he sometimes read aloud to his companions, to amuse them 
 when they were crossing the great Highland lakes in such 
 
 1 "Barbour adds the following circumstance, highly characteristic of 
 the sentiments of chivalry. MacNaugliton, a Baron of Cowal, pointed 
 out to the Lord of Lorn the deeds of valour which Bruce performed on 
 this memorable retreat, with the highest expression of admiration. ' It 
 seems to give thee pleasure,' said Lorn, ' that he makes such havoc among 
 our friends. ' ' Not so, by my faith,' replied MacNaughton ; ' but be he 
 friend or foe who achieves high deeds of chivalry, men should bear faith- 
 ful witness to his valour ; and never have I heard of one, who by his 
 knightly feats has extricated himself from such dangers as have this day 
 surrounded Bruce.' " Note to SIB WALTZB SCOTT'S Lord of the Isles. 
 
 i 5
 
 66 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. VIII 
 
 wretched leaky boats as they could find for that purpose. Loch 
 Lomond, iu particular, is said to have witnessed such scenes. 
 You may see by this how useful it is to possess knowledge and 
 accomplishments. If Bruce could not have read to his asso- 
 ciates, and diverted their thoughts from their dangers and 
 sufferings, he might not perhaps have been able to keep up 
 their spirits, or secure their continued attachment. 
 
 At last dangers increased so much around the brave King 
 Robert, that he was obliged to separate himself from his Queen 
 and her ladies ; for the winter was coming on, and it would be 
 impossible for the women to endure this wandering sort of life 
 when the frost and enow should set in. So Bruce left his 
 Queen, with the Countess of Buchan and others, in the only 
 castle which remained to him, which was called Kildrummie, 
 and is situated near the head of the river Don in Aberdeen- 
 shire. The King also left his youngest brother, Nigel Bruce, 
 to defend the castle against the English ; and he himself, with 
 his second brother Edward, who was a very brave man, but 
 still more rash and passionate than Robert himself, went over 
 to an island called Rachrin, on the coast of Ireland, where Bruce 
 and the few men that followed his fortunes passed the winter 
 of 1306. In the meantime ill luck seemed to pursue all his 
 friends in Scotland. The castle of Kildrummie was taken by 
 the English, and Nigel Bruce, a beautiful and brave youth, 
 was cruelly put to death by the victors. The ladies who had 
 attended on Robert's Queen, as well as the Queen herself, and 
 the Countess of Buchan, were thrown into strict confinement, 
 and treated with the utmost severity. 
 
 The Countess of Buchan, as I before told you, had given 
 Edward great offence by being the person who placed the crown 
 on the head of Robert Bruce. She was imprisoned within the 
 castle of Berwick, in a cage made on purpose. Some Scottish 
 authors have pretended that this cage was hung over the walls 
 with the poor countess, like a parrot's cage out at a window. 
 But this is their own ignorant idea. The cage of the Lady 
 Buchan was a strong wooden and iron piece of framework, 
 placed within an apartment, and resembling one of those places 
 in which wild beasts are confined. There were such cages in 
 most old prisons to which captives were consigned, who, either 
 for mutiny, or any other reason, were to be confined with 
 peculiar rigour.
 
 1306-1314 ROBERT THE BRUCE 67 
 
 The news of the taking of Kildrummie, the captivity of his 
 wife, and the execution of his brother, reached Bruce while he 
 was residing in a miserable dwelling at Rachrin, and reduced 
 him to the point of despair. 
 
 It was about this time that an incident took place, which, 
 although it rests only on tradition in families of the name of 
 Bruce, is rendered probable by the manners of the times. 
 After receiving the last unpleasing intelligence from Scotland, 
 Bruce was lying one morning on his wretched bed, and deliber- 
 ating with himself whether he had not better resign all 
 thoughts of again attempting to make good his right to the 
 Scottish crown, and, dismissing his followers, transport himself 
 and his brothers to the Holy Land, and spend the rest of his 
 life in righting against the Saracens; by which he thought, 
 perhaps, he might deserve the forgiveness of Heaven for the 
 great sin of stabbing Comyn in the church at Dumfries. But 
 then, on the other hand, he thought it would be both criminal 
 and cowardly to give up his attempts to restore freedom to 
 Scotland, while there yet remained the least chance of his being 
 successful in an undertaking which, rightly considered,' was 
 much more his duty than to drive the infidels out of Palestine, 
 though the superstition of his age might think otherwise. 
 
 While he was divided betwixt these reflections, and doubtful 
 of what he should do, Bruce was looking upward to the roof 
 of the cabin in which he lay ; and his eye was attracted by a 
 spider, which, hanging at the end of a long thread of its own 
 spinning, was endeavouring, as is the fashion of that creature, 
 to swing itself from one beam in the roof to another, for the 
 purpose of fixing the line on which it meant to stretch its web. 
 The insect made the attempt again and again without success ; 
 and at length Bruce counted that it had tried to carry its 
 point six times, and been as often unable to do so. It came 
 into his head that he had himself fought just six battles 
 against the English and their allies, and that the poor perse- 
 vering spider was exactly in the same situation with himself, 
 having made as many trials, and been as often disappointed in 
 what it aimed at. "Now," thought Bruce, "as I have no 
 means of knowing what is best to be done, I will be guided by 
 the luck which shall attend this spider. If the insect shall 
 make another effort to fix its thread, and shall be successful, I 
 will venture a seventh time to try my fortune in Scotland ; but
 
 68 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. VIII 
 
 if the spider shall fail, I will go to the wars iu Palestine, and 
 never return to my native country more." 
 
 While Bruce was forming this resolution, the spider made 
 another exertion with all the force it could muster, and fairly 
 succeeded in fastening its thread to the beam which it had so 
 often in vain attempted to reach. Bruce, seeing the success 
 of the spider, resolved to try his own fortune ; and as he had 
 never before gained a victory, so he never afterwards sustained 
 any considerable or decisive check or defeat. I have often met 
 with people of the name of Bruce, so completely persuaded of 
 the truth of this story that they would not on any account 
 kill a spider ; because it was that insect which had shown the 
 example of perseverance, and given a signal of good luck to 
 their great namesake. 
 
 Having determined to renew his efforts to obtain possession 
 of Scotland, notwithstanding the smalhiess of the means which 
 he had for accomplishing so great a purpose, the Bruce removed 
 himself and his followers from Rachrin to the island of Arran, 
 which lies in the mouth of the Clyde. The King landed, and 
 inquired of the first woman he met what armed men were in 
 the island. She returned for answer, that there had arrived 
 there very lately a body of armed strangers, who had defeated 
 an English officer, the governor of the castle of Brathwick, 1 
 had killed him and most of his men, and were now amusing 
 themselves with hunting about the island. The King, having 
 caused himself to be guided to the woods which these strangers 
 most frequented, there blew his horn repeatedly. Now, the 
 chief of the strangers who had taken the castle was James 
 Douglas, whom we have already mentioned as one of the best 
 of Bruce's friends, and he was accompanied by some of the 
 bravest of that patriotic band. When he heard Kobert Bruce's 
 horn, he knew the sound well, and cried out, that yonder was 
 the King, he knew by his manner of blowing. So he and his 
 companions hastened to meet King Robert, and there was great 
 joy on both sides ; whilst at the same time they could not help 
 weeping when they considered their own forlorn condition, 
 and the great loss that had taken place among their friends 
 since they had last parted. But they were stout-hearted men, 
 and looked forward to freeing their country, in spite of all that 
 had yet happened. 
 
 1 Or Brodick : now a seat of the Duke of Hamilton, Earl of Arran.
 
 1306-1314 ROBERT THE BRUCE 69 
 
 The Bruce was now within sight of Scotland, and not dis- 
 tant from his own family possessions, where the people were 
 most likely to be attached to him. He began immediately to 
 form plans with Douglas, how they might best renew their 
 enterprise against the English. The Douglas resolved to go 
 disguised to his own country, and raise his followers, in order 
 to begin their enterprise by taking revenge on an English noble- 
 man called Lord Clifford, upon whom Edward had conferred his 
 estates, and who had taken up his residence in the castle of 
 Douglas. 
 
 Bruce, on his part, opened a communication with the oppo- 
 site coast of Carrick, by means of one of his followers called 
 Outhbert. This person had directions, that if he should find 
 the countrymen in Carrick disposed to take up arms against the 
 English, he was to make a fire on a headland, or lofty cape, 
 called Turnberry, on the coast of Ayrshire, opposite to the 
 island of Arran. The appearance of a fire on this place was to 
 be a signal for Bruce to put to sea with such men as he had, 
 who were not more than three hundred in number, for the pur- 
 pose of landing in Carrick and joining the insurgents. 
 
 Bruce and his men watched eagerly for the signal, but for 
 some time in vain. At length a fire on Turnberry-head became 
 visible, and the King and his followers merrily betook them- 
 selves to their ships and galleys, concluding their Carrick friends 
 were all in arms, and ready to join with them. They landed 
 on the beach at midnight, where they found their spy Cuthbert 
 alone in waiting for them, with very bad news. Lord Percy, 
 he said, was in the country, with two or three hundred English- 
 men, and had terrified the people so much, both by threats and 
 actions, that none of them dared to think of rebelling against 
 King Edward. 
 
 "Traitor!" said Bruce, "why, then, did you make the 
 signal ? 
 
 " Alas," replied Cuthbert, " the fire was not made by me, 
 but by some other person, for what purpose I know not ; but 
 as soon as I saw it burning, I knew that you would come over, 
 thinking it my signal, and therefore I came down to wait for 
 you on the beach, to tell you how the matter stood." 
 
 King Robert's first idea was to return to Arran after this 
 disappointment ; but his brother Edward refused to go back. 
 He was, as I have told you, a man daring even to rashness,
 
 70 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. VIII 
 
 " I will not leave my native land," he said, " now that I am so 
 unexpectedly restored to it. I will give freedom to Scotland, 
 or leave my carcass on the surface of the land which gave me 
 birth." 
 
 Bruce, also, after some hesitation, determined that since he 
 had been thus brought to the mainland of Scotland, he would 
 remain there, and take such adventure and fortune as Heaven 
 should send him. 
 
 Accordingly he began to skirmish with the English so suc- 
 cessfully as obliged the Lord Percy to quit Carrick. Bruce 
 then dispersed his men upon various adventures against the 
 enemy, in which they were generally successful. But then, on 
 the other hand, the King, being left with small attendance, or 
 sometimes almost alone, ran great risk of losing his life by 
 treachery, or by open violence. Several of these incidents are 
 very interesting. I will tell you some of them. 
 
 At one time a near relation of Bruce's, in whom he entirely 
 confided, was induced by the bribes of the English to attempt 
 to put him to death. This villain, with his two sons, watched 
 the King one morning, till he saw him separated from all his 
 men, excepting a little boy, who waited on him as a page. The 
 father had a sword in his hand, one of the sons had a sword 
 and a spear, the other had a sword and a battle-axe. Now, 
 when the King saw them so well armed, when there were no 
 enemies near, he began to call to mind some hints which had 
 been given to him, that these men intended to murder him. 
 He had no weapons excepting his sword ; but his page had a bow 
 and arrow. He took them both from the little boy, and bade 
 him stand at a distance ; " for," said the King, " if I overcome 
 these traitors, thou shalt have enough of weapons ; but if I am 
 slain by them, you may make your escape, and tell Douglas and 
 my brother to revenge my death." The boy was very sorry, 
 for he loved his master ; but he was obliged to do as he was 
 bidden. 
 
 In the meantime the traitors came forward upon Bruce, 
 that they might assault him at once. The King called out to 
 them, and commanded them to come no nearer, upon peril of 
 their lives ; but the father answered with flattering words, pre- 
 tending great kindness, and still continuing to approach his per- 
 son. Then the King again called to them to stand. " Traitors," 
 said he, " ye have sold my life for English gold ; but you shall
 
 1306-1314 ROBERT THE BRUCE 71 
 
 die if you come one foot nearer to me." With that he bent 
 the page's bow ; and as the old conspirator continued to ad- 
 vance, he let the arrow fly at him. Bruce was an excellent 
 archer ; he aimed his arrow so well that it hit the father in the 
 eye, and penetrated from that into his brain, so that he fell 
 down dead. Then the two sons rushed on the King. One of 
 them fetched a blow at him with an axe, but missed his stroke 
 and stumbled, so that the King with his great sword cut him 
 down before he could recover his feet. The remaining traitor 
 ran on Bruce with his spear ; but the King, with a sweep of 
 his sword, cut the steel head off the villain's weapon, and then 
 killed him before he had time to draw his sword. Then the 
 little page came running, very joyful of his master's victory ; 
 and the King wiped his bloody sword, and looking upon the 
 dead bodies, said, " These might have been reputed three gal- 
 lant men, if they could have resisted the temptation of covet- 
 ousness." 
 
 In the present day it is not necessary that generals or great 
 officers should fight with their own hand, because it is only 
 their duty to direct the movements and exertions of their fol- 
 lowers. The artillery and the soldiers shoot at the enemy, 
 and men seldom mingle together, and fight hand to hand. But 
 in ancient times kings and great lords were obliged to put 
 themselves into the very front of the battle, and fight like 
 ordinary men, with the lance and other weapons. It was, there- 
 fore, of great consequence that they should be strong men, and 
 dexterous in the use of their arms. Robert Bruce was so re- 
 markably active and powerful that he came through a great 
 many personal dangers, in which he must otherwise have been 
 slain. I will tell you another of his adventures, which I think 
 will amuse you. 
 
 After the death of these three traitors, Robert the Bruce 
 continued to keep himself concealed in his own earldom of 
 Carrick, and in the neighbouring country of Galloway, until 
 he should have matters ready for a general attack upon the 
 English. He was obliged, in the meantime, to keep very few 
 men with him, both for the sake of secrecy, and from the diffi- 
 culty of finding provisions. Now, many of the people of 
 Galloway were unfriendly to Bruce. They lived under the 
 government of one M'Dougal, related to the Lord of Lorn, 
 who, as I before told you, had defeated Bruce at Dairy, and
 
 72 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. VIII 
 
 very nearly killed or made him prisoner. These Galloway 
 men had heard that Bruce was in their country, having no 
 more than sixty men with him ; so they resolved to attack him 
 by surprise, and for this purpose they got two hundred men 
 together, and brought with them two or three bloodhounds. 
 These animals were trained to chase a man by the scent of his 
 footsteps, as foxhounds chase a fox, or as beagles and harriers 
 chase a hare. Although the dog does not see the person whose 
 trace he is put upon, he follows him over every step he has 
 taken. At that time these bloodhounds or sleuthhounds (so 
 called from slot or sleut, a word which signifies the scent left 
 by an animal of chase) were used for the purpose of pursuing 
 great criminals. The men of Galloway thought themselves 
 secure, that if they missed taking Bruce, or killing him at the 
 first onset, and if he should escape into the woods, they would 
 find him out by means of these bloodhounds. 
 
 The good King Robert Bruce, who was always watchful 
 and vigilant, had received some information of the intention 
 of this party to come upon him suddenly and by night. Ac- 
 cordingly he quartered his little troop of sixty men on the 
 side of a deep and swift-running river, that had very steep and 
 rocky banks. There was but one ford by which this river 
 could be crossed in that neighbourhood, and that ford was 
 deep and narrow, so that two men could scarcely get through 
 abreast ; the ground on which they were to land on the side 
 where the King was was steep, and the path which led up- 
 wards from the water's edge to the top of the bank extremely 
 narrow and difficult. 
 
 Bruce caused his men to lie down to take some sleep, at a 
 place about half a mile distant from the river, while he him 
 self, with two attendants, went down to watch the ford, through 
 which the enemy must needs pass before they could come to 
 the place where King Robert's men were lying. He stood for 
 some time looking at the ford, and thinking how easily the 
 enemy might be kept from passing there, providing it was 
 bravely defended, when he heard at a distance the baying of a 
 hound, which was always coming nearer and nearer. This 
 was the bloodhound which was tracing the King's steps to the 
 ford where he had crossed, and the two hundred Galloway men 
 were along with the animal, and guided by it. Bruce at first 
 thought of going back to awaken his men ; but then he re-
 
 1306-1314 ROBERT THE BRUCE 73 
 
 fleeted that it might be only some shepherd's dog. " My men," 
 he said, " are sorely tired ; I will not disturb their sleep for 
 the yelping of a cur, till I know something more of the 
 matter." So he stood and listened ; and by and by, as the cry 
 of the hound came nearer, he began to hear a trampling of 
 horses, and the voices of men, and the ringing and clattering 
 of armour, and then he was sure the enemy were coming to 
 the riverside. Then the King thought, " If I go back to give 
 my men the alarm, these Galloway men will get through the 
 ford without opposition ; and that would be a pity, since it is 
 a place so advantageous to make defence against them." So 
 he looked again at the steep path and the deep river, and he 
 thought that they gave him so much advantage that he him- 
 self could defend the passage with his own hand until his men 
 came to assist him. His armour was so good and strong that 
 he had no fear of arrows, and therefore the combat was not 
 so very unequal as it must have otherwise been. He there- 
 fore sent his followers to waken his men, and remained alone 
 by the bank of the river. 
 
 In the meanwhile, the noise and trampling of the horses 
 increased ; and the moon being bright, Bruce beheld the glanc- 
 ing arms of about two hundred men, who came down to the 
 opposite bank of the river. The men of Galloway, on their 
 part, saw but one solitary figure, guarding the ford, and the 
 foremost of them plunged into the river without minding him. 
 But as they could only pass the ford one by one, the Bruce, who 
 stood high above them on the bank where they were to land, 
 killed the foremost man with a thrust of his long spear, and 
 with a second thrust stabbed the horse, which fell down, kick- 
 ing and plunging in his agonies, on the narrow path, and so 
 prevented the others who were following from getting out of 
 the river. Bruce had thus an opportunity of dealing his blows 
 at pleasure among them, while they could not strike at him 
 again. In the confusion, five or six of the enemy were slain, 
 or, having been borne down the current, were drowned in the 
 river. The rest were terrified, and drew back. 
 
 But when the Galloway men looked again, and saw they 
 were opposed by only one man, they themselves being so many, 
 they cried out that their honour would be lost for ever if they 
 did not force their way ; and encouraged each other with loud 
 cries to plunge through and assaxilt him. But by this time
 
 74 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. VII 1 
 
 the King's soldiers came up to his assistance, and the Galloway 
 men retreated, and gave up their enterprise. 1 
 
 I will tell you another story of this brave Robert Bruce 
 during his wanderings. His adventures are as curious and 
 entertaining as those which men invent for story books, with 
 this advantage, that they are all true. 
 
 About the time when the Bruce was yet at the head of but 
 few men, Sir Aymer de Valence, who was Earl of Pembroke, 
 together with John of Lorn, came into Galloway, each of them 
 being at the head of a large body of men. John of Lorn had a 
 bloodhound with him, which it was said had formerly belonged 
 to Robert Bruce himself; and having been fed by the King 
 with his own hands, it became attached to him, and would 
 follow his footsteps anywhere, as dogs are well known to trace 
 their master's steps, whether they be bloodhounds or not. By 
 means of this hound, John of Lorn thought he should certainly 
 find out Bruce, and take revenge on him for the death of his 
 relation Comyn. 
 
 When these two armies advanced upon King Robert, he at 
 first thought of fighting with the English earl ; but becoming 
 aware that John of Lorn was moving round with another large 
 body to attack him in the rear, he resolved to avoid fighting 
 at that time, lest he should be oppressed by numbers. For 
 this purpose, the King divided the men he had with him into 
 three bodies, and commanded them to retreat by three different 
 ways, thinking the enemy would not know which party to 
 pursue. He also appointed a place at which they were to as- 
 semble again. But when John of Lorn came to the place 
 where the army of Bruce had been thus divided, the blood- 
 hound took his course after one of these divisions, neglecting 
 the other two, and then John of Lorn knew that the King 
 must be in that party ; so he also made no pursuit after the 
 two other divisions of the Scots, but followed that which the 
 dog pointed out, with all his men. 
 
 The King again saw that he was followed by a large body, 
 and being determined to escape from them, if possible, he made 
 all the people who were with him disperse themselves different 
 ways, thinking thus that the enemy must needs lose trace of 
 
 1 " When the soldiers came up, they found the King wearied, but un- 
 wounded, and sitting on a bank, where he had cast off his helmet to wipe 
 his brow, and cool himself in the night air." TYTI.ER.
 
 1306-1314 ROBERT THE BRUCE 75 
 
 him. He kept only one man along with him, and that was 
 his own foster-brother, or the son of his nurse. When John 
 of Lorn came to the place where Bruce's companions had dis- 
 persed themselves, the bloodhound, after it had snuffed up and 
 down for a little, quitted the footsteps of all the other fugi- 
 tives, and ran barking upon the track of two men out of the 
 whole number. Then John of Lorn knew that one of these 
 two must needs be King Robert. Accordingly he commanded 
 five of his men that were speedy of foot to follow hard, and 
 either make him prisoner or slay him. The Highlanders 
 started off accordingly, and ran so fast that they gained sight 
 of Robert and his foster-brother. The King asked his com- 
 panion what help he could give him, and his foster-brother 
 answered he was ready to do his best. So these two turned 
 on the five men of John of Lorn, and killed them alL It is 
 to be supposed they were better armed than the others were, 
 as well as stronger and more desperate. 
 
 But by this time Bruce was very much fatigued, and yet 
 they dared not sit down to take any rest ; for whenever they 
 stopped for an instant, they heard the cry of the bloodhound 
 behind them, and knew by that that their enemies were com- 
 ing up fast after them. At length they came to a wood, 
 through which ran a small river. Then Bruce said to his 
 foster-brother, " Let us wade down this stream for a great way, 
 instead of going straight across, and so this unhappy hound 
 will lose the scent ; for if we were once clear of him, I should 
 not be afraid of getting away from the pursuers." Accord- 
 ingly the King and his attendant walked a great way down 
 the stream, taking care to keep their feet in the water, which 
 could not retain any scent where they had stepped. Then they 
 came ashore on the further side from the enemy, and went deep 
 into the wood before they stopped to rest themselves. In the 
 meanwhile, the hound led John of Lorn straight to the place 
 where the King went into the water, but there the dog began 
 to be puzzled, not knowing where to go next ; for you are well 
 aware that the running water could not retain the scent of a 
 man's foot, like that which remains on turf. So John of Lorn 
 seeing the dog was at fault, as it is called, that is, had lost the 
 track of what he pursued, gave up the chase, and returned to 
 join with Aymer de Valence. 
 
 But King Rooert's adventures were not yet ended, His
 
 76 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. VIII 
 
 foster-brother and he had rested themselves in the wood, but 
 they had got no food, and were become extremely hungry. 
 They walked on, however, in hopes of coming to some habi- 
 tation. At length, in the midst of the forest, they met with 
 three men who looked like thieves or ruffians. They were 
 well armed, and one of them bore a sheep on his back, which 
 it seemed as if they had just stolen. They saluted the King 
 civilly ; and he, replying to their salutation, asked them where 
 they were going. The men answered, they were seeking for 
 Robert Bruce, for that they intended to join with him. The 
 King answered, that if they would go with him, he would con- 
 duct them where they would find the Scottish King. Then 
 the man who had spoken changed countenance, and Bruce, 
 who looked sharply at him, began to suspect that the ruffian 
 guessed who he was, and that he and his companions had some 
 design against his person, in order to gain the reward which 
 had been offered for his life. 
 
 So he said to them, "My good friends, as we are not well 
 acquainted with each other, you must go before us, and we will 
 follow near to you." 
 
 " You have no occasion to suspect any harm from us," an- 
 swered the man. 
 
 " Neither do I suspect any," said Bruce ; " but this is the 
 way in which I choose to travel." 
 
 The men did as he commanded, and thus they travelled till 
 they came together to a waste and ruinous cottage, where the 
 men proposed to dress some part of the sheep, which their 
 companion was carrying. The King was glad to hear of food ; 
 but he insisted that there should be two fires kindled, one for 
 himself and his foster-brother at one end of the house, the 
 other at the other end for their three companions. The men 
 did as he desired. They broiled a quarter of mutton for them- 
 selves, and gave another to the King and his attendant 
 
 They were obliged to eat it without bread or salt ; but as 
 they were very hungry, they were glad to get food in any 
 shape, and partook of it very heartily. 
 
 Then so heavy a drowsiness fell on King Robert, that, for 
 all the danger he was in, he could not resist an inclination to 
 sleep. But first he desired his foster-brother to watch while 
 he slept, for he had great suspicion of their new acquaintances. 
 His foster-brother promised to keep awake, and did his best to
 
 1306 1314 ROBERT THE BRUCE 77 
 
 keep his word. But the King had not been long asleep ere his 
 foster-brother fell into a deep slumber also, for he had under- 
 gone as much fatigue as the King. When the three villains 
 saw the King and his attendant asleep, they made signs to 
 each other, and rising up at once, drew their swords with the 
 purpose to kill them both. But the King slept but lightly, 
 and for as little noise as the traitors made in rising, he was 
 awakened by it, and starting up, drew his sword, and went to 
 meet them. At the same moment he pushed his foster-brother 
 with his foot, to awaken him, and he got on his feet ; but ere 
 he got his eyes cleared to see what was about to happen, one 
 of the ruffians that were advancing to slay the King, killed him 
 with a stroke of his sword. The King was now alone, one 
 man against three, and in the greatest danger of his life ; but 
 his amazing strength, and the good armour which he wore, 
 freed him once more from this great peril, and he killed the 
 three men, one after another. He then left the cottage, very 
 sorrowful for the death of his faithful foster-brother, and took 
 his direction towards the place where he had appointed his 
 men to assemble after their dispersion. It was now near night, 
 and the place of meeting being a farm-house, he went boldly 
 into it, where he found the mistress, an old true-hearted 
 Scotswoman, sitting alone. Upon seeing a stranger enter, 
 she asked him who and what he was. The King answered 
 that he was a traveller, who was journeying through the 
 country. 
 
 " All travellers," answered the good woman, " are welcome 
 here, for the sake of one." 
 
 " And who is that one," said the King, " for whose sake 
 you make all travellers welcome 1 " 
 
 " It is our rightful king, Robert the Bruce," answered the 
 mistress, "who is the lawful lord of this country; and al- 
 though he is now pursued and hunted after with hounds and 
 horns, I hope to live to see him King over all Scotland." 
 
 " Since you love him so well, dame," said the King, " know 
 that you see him before you. I am Robert the Bruce." 
 
 " You ! " said the good woman, in great surprise ; " and 
 wherefore are you thus alone 1 where are all your men 1 " 
 
 " I have none with me at this moment," answered Bruce, 
 " and therefore I must travel alone." 
 
 " But that shall not be," said the brave old dame, " for I
 
 78 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. VIII 
 
 have two stout sons, gallant and trusty men, who shall be 
 your servants for life and death. 
 
 So she brought her two sons, and though she well knew the 
 dangers to which she exposed them, she made them swear 
 fidelity to the King ; and they afterwards became high officers 
 in his service. 
 
 Now, the loyal old woman was getting everything ready 
 for the King's supper, when suddenly there was a great tramp- 
 ling of horses heard round the house. They thought it 
 must be some of the English, or John of Lorn's men, and the 
 good wife called upon her sons to fight to the last for King 
 Robert. But shortly after they heard the voice of the Good 
 Lord James of Douglas, and of Edward Bruce, the King's 
 brother, who had come with a hundred and fifty horsemen to 
 this farm-house, according to the instructions that the King 
 had left with them at parting. 
 
 Robert the Bruce was right joyful to meet his brother, and 
 his faithful friend Lord James ; and had no sooner found 
 himself once more at the head of such a considerable body of 
 followers than, forgetting hunger and weariness, he began to 
 inquire where the enemy who had pursued them so long had 
 taken up their abode for the night; "for," said he, "as they 
 must suppose us totally scattered and fled, it is likely that they 
 will think themselves quite secure, and disperse themselves into 
 distant quarters, and keep careless watch." 
 
 "That is very true," answered James of Douglas, "for I 
 passed a village where there are two hundred of them quartered, 
 who had placed no sentinels ; and if you have a mind to make 
 haste, we may surprise them this very night, and do them 
 more mischief than they have been able to do us during all this 
 day's chase. 
 
 Then there was nothing but mount and ride ; and as the 
 Scots came by surprise on the body of English whom Douglas 
 had mentioned, and rushed suddenly into the village where 
 they were quartered, they easily dispersed and cut them to 
 pieces ; thus, as Douglas had said, doing their pursuers more 
 injury than they themselves had received during the long and 
 severe pursuit of the preceding day. 
 
 The consequence of these successes of King Robert was that 
 soldiers came to join him on all sides, and that he obtained 
 several victories both over Sir Aymer de Valence, Lord Clifford,
 
 1306-1314 DOUGLAS AND RANDOLPH 79 
 
 and other English commanders; until at length the English 
 were afraid to venture into the open country as formerly, 
 unless when they could assemble themselves in considerable 
 bodies. They thought it safer to lie still in the towns and 
 castles which they had garrisoned, and wait till the King of 
 England should once more come to their assistance with a 
 powerful army. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Douglas and Randolph 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. Englattd: Edward I., Edward II. 
 France : Philip IV. 
 
 1307-1314 
 
 WHEN King Edward the First heard that Scotland was again 
 in arms against him, he marched down to the Borders, as 
 I have already told you, with many threats of what he would 
 do to avenge himself on Bruce and his party, whom he called 
 rebels. But he was now old and feeble, and while he was 
 making his preparations, he was taken very ill, and after 
 lingering a long time, at length died on the 6th July 1307, at 
 a place in Cumberland called Burgh upon the Sands, in full 
 sight of Scotland, and not three miles from its frontier. His 
 hatred to that country was so inveterate, that his thoughts of 
 revenge seemed to occupy his mind on his deathbed. He 
 made his son promise never to make peace with Scotland until 
 the nation was subdued. He gave also very singular directions 
 concerning the disposal of his dead body. He ordered that it 
 should be boiled in a cauldron till the flesh parted from the 
 bones, and that then the bones should be wrapt up in a bull's 
 hide, and carried at the head of the English army, as often as 
 the Scots attempted to recover their freedom. He thought 
 that he had inflicted such distresses on the Scots, and invaded 
 and defeated them so often, that his very dead bones woidd 
 terrify them. His son, Edward the Second, did not choose 
 to execute this strange injunction, but caused his father to be 
 buried in Westminster Abbey ; where his tomb is still to be 
 seen, bearing for an inscription, HERE LIES THE HAMMER OF
 
 80 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. IX 
 
 THE SCOTTISH NATION. 1 And, indeed, it was true, that 
 during his life he did them as much injury as a hammer does 
 to the substances which it dashes to pieces. 
 
 Edward the Second was neither so brave nor so wise as his 
 father : on the contrary, he was a weak prince, fond of idle 
 amusements, and worthless favourites. It was lucky for Scot- 
 land that such was his disposition. He marched a little way 
 into Scotland 2 with the large army which Edward the First 
 had collected, but retired without fighting ; which gave great 
 encouragement to Brace's party. 
 
 Several of the Scottish nobility now took arms in different 
 parts of the country, declared for King Robert, and fought 
 against the English troops and garrisons. The most distin- 
 guished of these was the Good Lord James of Douglas, whom 
 we have often mentioned before. Some of his most memorable 
 exploits respected his own castle of Douglas, in which, being an 
 important fortress, and strongly situated, the English had 
 placed a large garrison. James of Douglas saw, with great 
 displeasure, his castle filled with English soldiers, and stored 
 with great quantities of corn, and cattle, and wine, and ale, 
 and other supplies which they were preparing, to enable them 
 to assist the English army with provisions. So he resolved, 
 if possible, to be revenged upon the captain of the garrison and 
 his soldiers. 
 
 For this purpose, Douglas went in disguise to the house of 
 one of his old servants, called Thomas Dickson, a strong, 
 faithful, and bold man, and laid a scheme for taking the castle. 
 A holiday was approaching, called Palm Sunday. 
 Upon this day it was common, in the Roman 
 Catholic times, that the people went to church in 
 procession, with green boughs in their hands. Just as the 
 English soldiers, who had marched down from the castle, got 
 into church, one of Lord James's followers raised the cry of 
 Douglas, Douglas! which was the shout with which that 
 family always began battle. Thomas Dickson and some 
 friends whom he had collected instantly drew their swords 
 and killed the first Englishman whom they met. But as the 
 signal had been given too soon, Dickson was borne down and 
 slain. Douglas and his men presently after forced their way 
 
 1 Edwardus longus Scotonim Malleus hie eat. 
 * To Cumnock, on the frontiers of Ayrshire.
 
 1307-1314 DOUGLAS AND RANDOLPH 81 
 
 into the church. The English soldiers attempted to defend 
 themselves ; but, being taken by surprise and unprepared, they 
 were, for the greater part, killed or made prisoners, and that 
 so suddenly, and with so little noise, that their companions in 
 the castle never heard of it. So that when Douglas and his 
 men approached the castle gate, they found it open, and that 
 part of the garrison which were left at home, busied cooking 
 provisions for those that were at church. So Lord James got 
 possession of his own castle without difficulty, and he and his 
 men eat up all the good dinner which the English had made 
 ready. But Douglas dared not stay there, lest the English 
 should come in great force and besiege him ; and therefore he 
 resolved to destroy all the provisions which the English had 
 stored up in the castle, and to render the place unavailing to 
 them. 
 
 It must be owned he executed this purpose in a very cruel 
 and shocking manner, for he was much enraged at the death 
 of Thomas Dickson. He caused all the barrels containing 
 flour, meal, wheat, and malt, to be knocked in pieces, and their 
 contents mixed on the floor; then he staved the great hogs- 
 heads of wine and ale, and mixed the liquor with the stores ; 
 and, last of all, he killed his prisoners, and flung the dead 
 bodies among this disgusting heap, which his men called, in 
 derision of the English, the Douglas Larder. Then he flung 
 dead horses into the well to destroy it after which he set fire 
 to the castle ; and finally marched away, and took refuge with 
 his followers in the hills and forests. " He loved better," he 
 said, " to hear the lark sing than the mouse squeak." That 
 is, he loved better to keep in the open field with his men, than 
 to shut himself and them up in castles. 
 
 When Clifford, the English general, heard what had hap- 
 pened, he came to Douglas Castle with a great body of men, 
 and rebuilt all the defences which Lord James had destroyed, 
 and cleared out the well, and put a good soldier, named Thirl- 
 wall to command the garrison, and desired him to be on his 
 guard, for he suspected that Lord James would again attack 
 him. And, indeed, Douglas, who did not like to see the Eng- 
 lish in his father's castle, was resolved to take the first oppor- 
 tunity of destroying this garrison, as he had done the former. 
 For this purpose he again had recourse to stratagem. He laid 
 a part of his followers in ambush in the wood, and sent fourteen 
 i 6
 
 82 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER C HAP. IX 
 
 men, disguised like countrymen, driving cattle past the gates 
 of the castle. As soon as Thirlwall saw this, he swore that 
 he would plunder the Scots' drovers of their cattle, and came 
 out with a considerable part of his garrison for that purpose. 
 He had followed the cattle past the place where Douglas was 
 lying concealed, when all of a sudden the Scotsmen threw off 
 their carriers' cloaks, and appearing in armour, cried the cry 
 of Douglas, and, turning back suddenly, ran to meet the pur- 
 suers ; and before Thirlwall could make any defence, he heard 
 the same war-cry behind him, and saw Douglas coming up with 
 those Scots who had been lying in ambush. Thirlwall him- 
 self was killed, fighting bravely in the middle of his enemies, 
 and only a very few of his men found their way back to the 
 castle. 
 
 When Lord James had thus slain two English commanders 
 or governors of his castle, and was known to have made a vow 
 that he would be revenged on any one who should dare to take 
 possession of his father's house, men became afraid ; and the 
 fortress was called, both in England and Scotland, the Perilous 
 Castle of Douglas, because it proved so dangerous to any English- 
 man who was stationed there. Now, in those warlike times, 
 Master Littlejohn, you must know that the ladies would not 
 marry any man who was not very brave and valiant, so that a 
 coward, let him be ever so rich or high-born, was held in 
 universal contempt. And thus it became the fashion for the 
 ladies to demand proofs of the courage of their lovers, and for 
 those knights who desired to please the ladies, to try some 
 extraordinary deed of arms, to show their bravery and deserve 
 their favour. 
 
 At the time we speak of, there was a young lady in Eng- 
 land whom many knights and noblemen asked in marriage, 
 because she was extremely wealthy, and very beautiful Once 
 upon a holiday she made a great feast, to which she asked all 
 her lovers, and numerous other gallant knights ; and after the 
 feast she arose and told them that she was much obliged to 
 them for their good opinion of her, but as she desired to have 
 for her husband a man of the most incontestable bravery, she 
 had formed her resolution not to marry any one save one who 
 should show his courage by defending the Perilous Oastle of 
 Douglas against the Scots for a year and a day. Now this 
 made some silence among the gentlemen present ; for although
 
 1307-1314 DOUGLAS AND RANDOLPH 83 
 
 the lady was rich and beautiful, yet there was great danger in 
 placing themselves within the reach of the Good Lord James 
 of Douglas. At last a brave young knight started up and 
 said, that for the love of that lady he was willing to keep the 
 Perilous Castle for a year and a day, if the King pleased to 
 give him leave. The King of England was satisfied, and well 
 pleased to get a brave man to hold a place so dangerous. Sir 
 John Wilton was the name of this gallant knight. He kept 
 the castle very safely for some time ; but Douglas at last, by 
 a stratagem, 1 induced him to venture out with a part of the 
 garrison, and then set upon them and slew them. Wilton 
 himself was killed, and a letter from the lady was found in his 
 pocket. Douglas was sorry for his unhappy end, and did not 
 put to death any of the prisoners as he had formerly done, but 
 dismissed them in safety to the next English garrison. 
 
 Other great lords, besides Douglas, were now exerting them- 
 selves to attack aud destroy the English. Amongst those 
 was Sir Thomas Randolph, whose mother was a sister of King 
 Robert. He had joined with the Bruce when he first took up 
 arms. Afterwards being made prisoner by the English, when 
 the King was defeated at Methven, as I told you, Sir Thomas 
 Randolph was obliged to adhere to Edward First to save his 
 life. He remained so constant in this, that he was in com- 
 pany with Aymer de Valence and John of Lorn when they 
 forced the Bruce to disperse his little band ; and he followed 
 the pursuit so close, that he made his uncle's standard-bearer 
 prisoner, and took his banner. Afterwards, however, he was 
 himself made prisoner, at a solitary house on Lyne-water, 2 by 
 the Good Lord James Douglas, who brought him captive to the 
 King. Robert reproached his nephew for having deserted his 
 cause; and Randolph, who was very hot-tempered, answered 
 insolently, and was sent by King Robert to prison. Shortly 
 after, the uncle and nephew were reconciled, and Sir Thomas 
 Randolph, created Earl of Murray by the King, was ever after- 
 wards one of Bruce's best supporters. There was a sort of 
 rivalry between Douglas and him, which should do the boldest 
 
 1 This stratagem was, in its contrivance and success, the same as his 
 former one, save that in place of cattle-driving, Sir James made fourteen 
 of his men take so many sacks, and fill them with grass, as if corn for th 
 county market-town of Lanark, distant twelve miles from the Castle of 
 Douglas. See Introduction to "Castle Dangerous," Waverley Novels. 
 
 1 The Lyne falls into the Tweed a little above Peebles.
 
 84 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. IX 
 
 and most hazardous actioiis. I will just mention one or two 
 circumstances, which will show you what awful dangers were 
 to be encountered by these brave men in order to free Scot- 
 land from its enemies and invaders. 
 
 While Robert Bruce was gradually getting possession of the 
 country, and driving out the English, Edinburgh, the principal 
 town of Scotland, remained, with its strong castle, in possession 
 of the invaders. Sir Thomas Randolph was extremely desirous 
 to gain this important place ; but, as you well know, the castle 
 is situated on a very steep and lofty rock, so that it is difficult 
 or almost impossible even to get up to the foot of the walls, 
 much more to climb over them. 
 
 So while Randolph was considering what was to be done, 
 there came to him a Scottish gentleman named Francis, who 
 had joined Bruce's standard, and asked to speak with him in 
 private. He then told Randolph that in his youth he had 
 lived in the castle of Edinburgh, and that his father had then 
 been keeper of the fortress. It happened at that time that 
 Francis was much in love with a lady who lived in a part of 
 the town beneath the castle, which is called the Grassmarket. 
 Now, as he could not get out of the castle by day to see his 
 mistress, he had practised a way of clambering by night down 
 the castle rock on the south side, and returning at his pleasure ; 
 when he came to the foot of the wall, he made use of a ladder 
 to get over it, as it was not very high at that point, those who 
 built it having trusted to the steepness of the crag ; and, for 
 the same reason, no watch was placed there. Francis had gone 
 and come so frequently in this dangerous manner that, though 
 it was now long ago, he told Randolph he knew the road so 
 well, that he would undertake to guide a small party of men by 
 night to the bottom of the wall; and as they might bring 
 ladders with them, there would be no difficulty in scaling it. 
 The great risk was, that of their being discovered by the watch- 
 men while in the act of ascending the cliff, in which case every 
 man of them must have perished. 
 
 Nevertheless, Randolph did not hesitate to attempt the ad- 
 venture. He took with him only thirty men (you may be 
 sure they were chosen for activity and courage), and came 
 one dark night to the foot of the rock, which they began to 
 ascend under the guidance of Francis, who went before them, 
 upon his hands and feet, up one cliff, down another, and round
 
 1307-1314 DOUGLAS AND RANDOLPH 85 
 
 another, where there was scarce room to support themselves. 
 All the while, these thirty men were obliged to follow in a line, 
 one after the other, by a path that was fitter for a cat than a 
 man. The noise of a stone falling, or a word spoken from 
 one to another, would have alarmed the watchmen. They 
 were obliged, therefore, to move with the greatest precaution. 
 When they were far up the crag, and near the foundation of 
 the wall, they heard the guards going their rounds, to see 
 that all was safe in and about the castle. Randolph and his 
 party had nothing for it but to lie close and quiet each man 
 under the crag, as he happened to be placed, and trust that 
 the guards would pass by without noticing them. And while 
 they were waiting in breathless alarm, they got a new cause 
 of fright. One of the soldiers of the castle, willing to startle 
 his comrades, suddenly threw a stone from the wall, and cried 
 out, "Aha, I see you well!" The stone came thundering 
 down over the heads of Randolph and his men, who naturally 
 thought themselves discovered. If they had stirred, or made 
 the slightest noise, they would have been entirely destroyed ; 
 for the soldiers above might have killed every man of them 
 merely by rolling down stones. But being courageous and 
 chosen men, they remained quiet, and the English soldiers, 
 who thought their comrade was merely playing them a trick 
 (as, indeed, he had no other meaning in what he did and said), 
 passed on, without further examination. 
 
 Then Randolph and his men got up, and came in haste to 
 the foot of the wall, which was not above twice a man's height 
 in that place. They planted the ladders they had brought, and 
 Francis mounted first to show them the way; Sir Andrew 
 Grey, a brave knight, followed him, and Randolph himself was 
 the third man who got over. Then the rest followed. When 
 once they were within the walls, there was not so much to do, 
 for the garrison were asleep and unarmed, excepting the watch, 
 who were speedily destroyed. Thus was Edinburgh castle 
 taken in March 1312-13. 
 
 It was not, however, only by the exertions of great and 
 powerful barons, like Randolph and Douglas, that the freedom 
 of Scotland was to be accomplished. The stout yeomanry, 
 and the bold peasantry of the land, who were as desirous to 
 enjoy their cottages in honourable independence as the nobles 
 were to reclaim their castles and estates from the English,
 
 86 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. IX 
 
 contributed their full share in the efforts which were made to 
 deliver their country from the invaders. I will give you one 
 instance among many. 
 
 There was a strong castle near Linlithgow, or Lithgow, as 
 the word is more generally pronounced, where an English 
 governor, with a powerful garrison, lay in readiness to support 
 the English cause, and used to exercise much severity upon 
 the Scots in the neighbourhood. There lived, at no great dis- 
 tance from this stronghold, a farmer, a bold and stout man, 
 whose name was Binnock, or as it is now pronounced, Bin- 
 ning. This man saw with great joy the progress which the 
 Scots were making in recovering their country from the Eng- 
 lish, and resolved to do something to help his countrymen, by 
 getting possession, if it were possible, of the castle of Lith- 
 gow. But the place was very strong, situated by the side 
 of a lake, defended not only by gates, which were usually kept 
 shut against strangers, but also by a portcullis. A portcullis 
 is a sort of door formed of cross-bars of iron, like a grate. 
 It has not hinges like a door, but is drawn up by pulleys, and 
 let down when any danger approaches. It may be let go in a 
 moment, and then falls down into the doorway ; and as it has 
 great iron spikes at the bottom, it crushes all that it lights 
 upon ; thus in case of a sudden alarm, a portcullis may be let 
 suddenly fall to defend the entrance, when it is not possible to 
 shut the gates. Binnock knew this very well, but he resolved 
 to be provided against this risk also when he attempted to sur- 
 prise the castle. So he spoke with some bold courageous 
 countrymen, and engaged them in his enterprise, which he 
 accomplished thus. 
 
 Binnock had been accustomed to supply the garrison of 
 Linlithgow with hay, and he had been ordered by the English 
 governor to furnish some cart-loads, of which they were in 
 want He promised to bring it accordingly; but the night 
 before he drove the hay to the castle, he stationed a party of 
 his friends, as well armed as possible, near the entrance, where 
 they could not be seen by the garrison, and gave them direc- 
 tions that they should come to his assistance as soon as they 
 should hear his signal, which was to be, "Call all, call 
 all !" Then he loaded a great waggon with hay. But in the 
 waggon he placed eight strong men, well armed, lying flat on 
 their breasts, and covered over with hay, so that they could
 
 1307-1314 DOUGLAS AND RANDOLPH 87 
 
 not be seen. He himself walked carelessly beside the waggon , 
 and he chose the stoutest and bravest of his servants to be the 
 driver, who carried at his belt a strong axe or hatchet In this 
 way Binnock approached the castle early in the morning ; and 
 the watchman, who only saw two men, Binnock being one of 
 them, with a cart of hay, which they expected, opened the 
 gates, and raised up the portcullis, to permit them to enter the 
 castle. But as soon as the cart had got under the gateway. 
 Binnock made a sign to his servant, who with his axe sud 
 denly cut asunder the saom, that is the yoke which fastens the 
 horses to the cart, and the horses finding themselves free, 
 naturally started forward, the cart remaining behind under the 
 arch of the gate. At the same moment, Binnock cried as 
 loud as he could, "Call all, call all !" and drawing the sword 
 which he had under his country habit, he killed the porter. 
 The armed men then jumped up from under the hay where 
 they lay concealed, and rushed on the English guard. The 
 Englishmen tried to shut the gates, but they could not, because 
 the cart of hay remained in the gateway, and prevented the 
 folding-doors from being closed. The portcullis was also let 
 fall, but the grating was caught on the cart, and so could not 
 drop to the ground. The men who were in ambush near the 
 gate, hearing the signal agreed on, ran to assist those who had 
 leaped out from amongst the hay ; the castle was taken, and 
 all the Englishmen killed or made prisoners. King Robert 
 rewarded Binnock by bestowing on him an estate, which his 
 posterity long afterwards enjoyed. 
 
 Perhaps you may be tired, my dear child, of such stories ; 
 yet I will tell you how the great and important castle of Rox- 
 burgh was taken from the English, and then we will pass to 
 other subjects. 
 
 You must know Roxburgh was then a very large castle, 
 situated near where two fine rivers, the Tweed and the Teviot, 
 join each other. Being within five or six miles of England, 
 the English were extremely desirous of retaining it, and the 
 Scots equally eager to obtain possession of it. I will tell you 
 how it was taken. 
 
 It was upon the night of what is called Shrovetide, a holi- 
 day which Roman Catholics paid great respect to, and solem- 
 nised with much gaiety and feasting. Most of the garrison 
 of Roxburgh Castle were drinking and carousing, but still they
 
 88 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. IX 
 
 had set watches on the battlements of the castle, in case of any 
 sudden attack ; for, as the Scots had succeeded in so many 
 enterprises of the kind, and as Douglas was known to be in the 
 neighbourhood, they conceived themselves obliged to keep a 
 very strict guard. 
 
 An Englishwoman, the wife of one of the officers, was 
 sitting on the battlements with her child in her arms; and 
 looking out on the fields below, she saw some black objects, 
 like a herd of cattle, straggling near the foot of the wall, and 
 approaching the ditch or moat of the castle. She pointed them 
 out to the sentinel, and asked him what they were. " Pooh, 
 pooh," said the soldier, " it is farmer such a one's cattle " (naming 
 a man whose farm lay near to the castle) ; " the good man is 
 keeping a jolly Shrovetide, and has forgot to shut up his 
 bullocks in their yard ; but if the Douglas come across them 
 before morning, he is likely to rue his negligence." Now 
 these creeping objects which they saw from the castle wall were 
 no real cattle, but Douglas himself and his soldiers, who had 
 put black cloaks above their armour, and were creeping about 
 on hands and feet, in order, without being observed, to get so 
 near to the foot of the castle wall as to be able to set ladders 
 to it. The poor woman, who knew nothing of this, sat 
 quietly on the wall, and began to sing to her child. You must 
 know that the name of Douglas had become so terrible to the 
 English that the women used to frighten their children with 
 it, and say to them, when they behaved ill, that they " would 
 make the Black Douglas take them." And this soldier's wife 
 was singing to her child, 
 
 " Hush ye, hush ye, little pet ye, 
 Hush ye, hush ye, do not fret ye, 
 The Black Douglas shall not get ye." 
 
 " You are not so sure of that," said a voice close beside her. 
 She felt at the same time a heavy hand, with an iron glove, 
 laid on her shoulder, and when she looked round, she saw the 
 very Black Douglas she had been singing about, standing close 
 beside her, a tall, swarthy, strong man. At the same time, 
 another Scotsman was seen ascending the walls, near to the 
 sentinel The soldier gave the alarm, and rushed at the 
 Scotsman, whose name was Simon Ledehouse, with his lance j 
 but Simon parried the stroke, and closing with the sentinel,
 
 1307-1314 DOUGLAS AND RANDOLPH 89 
 
 struck liiin a deadly blow with his dagger. The rest of the 
 Scots followed up to assist Douglas and Ledehouse, and the 
 castle was taken. Many of the soldiers were put to death, but 
 Douglas protected the woman and the child. I daresay she 
 made no more songs about the Black Douglas. 
 
 While Douglas, Randolph, and other true-hearted patriots, 
 were thus taking castles and strongholds from the English, 
 King Robert, who had now a considerable army under his 
 command, marched through the country, beating and dispersing 
 such bodies of English as he met on his way. He went to the 
 north country, where he conquered the great and powerful 
 family of Comyn, who retained strong ill-will against him for 
 having slain their relation, the Red Comyn. They had joined 
 the English with all their forces ; but now, as the Scots began 
 to get the upper hand, they were very much distressed. Bruce 
 caused more than thirty of them to be beheaded in one day, 
 and the place where they are buried is called " the Grave of the 
 headless Comyns." 
 
 Neither did Bruce forget or forgive John M'Dougal of 
 Lorn, who defeated him at Dairy, and had very nearly made 
 him prisoner, by the hands of his vassals, the M'Androssers, 
 and afterwards pursued him with a bloodhound. When John 
 of Lorn heard that Bruce was marching against him, he hoped 
 to defend himself by taking possession of a very strong pass 
 on the side of one of the largest mountains in Scotland, 
 Ben Cruachen. The ground was very strait, having lofty 
 rocks on the one hand, and on the other deep precipices, 
 sinking down on a great lake called Lochawe ; so that John 
 of Lorn thought himself perfectly secure, as he could not be 
 attacked except in front, and by a very difficult path. But 
 King Robert, when he saw how his enemies were posted, sent 
 a party of light-armed archers, under command of Douglas, 
 with directions to go, by a distant and difficult road, around 
 the northern side of the hill, and thus to attack the men of 
 Lorn in the rear as well as in front ; that is, behind, as well as 
 before. He had signals made when Douglas arrived at the 
 place appointed. The King then advanced upon the Lorn 
 men in front, when they raised a shout of defiance, and began 
 to shoot arrows and roll stones down the path, with great con- 
 fidence in the security of their own position. But when they 
 were attacked by the Douglas and his archers in the rear, the
 
 90 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. IX 
 
 soldiers of M'Dougal lost courage and fled. Many were slain 
 among the rocks and precipices, and many were drowned in the 
 lake, and the great river which runs out of it. John of Lorn 
 only escaped by means of a boat, which he had in readiness 
 upon the lake. Thus King Robert had full revenge upon him, 
 and deprived him of a great part of his territory. 
 
 The English now possessed scarcely any place of importance 
 in Scotland, excepting Stirling, which was besieged, or rather 
 blockaded, by Edward Bruce, the King's brother. To blockade 
 a town or castle is to quarter an army around it, so as to pre- 
 vent those within from getting provisions. This was done by 
 the Scots before Stirling, till Sir Philip Mowbray, who com- 
 manded the castle, finding that he was likely to be reduced to 
 extremity for want of provisions, made an agreement with 
 Edward Bruce that he would surrender the place, provided he 
 were not relieved by the King of England before midsummer. 
 Sir Edward agreed to these terms, and allowed Mowbray to go 
 to London, to tell King Edward of the conditions he had made. 
 But when King Robert heard what his brother had done, he 
 thought it was too great a risk, since it obliged him to venture 
 a battle with the full strength of Edward II., who had under 
 him England, Ireland, Wales, and great part of France, and 
 could within the time allowed assemble a much more powerful 
 army than the Scots could, even if all Scotland were fully 
 under the King's authority. Sir Edward answered his brother 
 with his naturally audacious spirit, " Let Edward bring every 
 man he has, we will fight them, were they more." The King 
 admired his courage, though it was mingled with rashness. 
 " Since it is so, brother," he said, " we will manfully abide 
 battle, and assemble all who love us, and value the freedom of 
 Scotland, to come with all the men they have, and help us to 
 oppose King Edward, should he come with his army to rescxie 
 Stirling."
 
 1314 BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN 91 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Battle of Bannockbum 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Edward II. 
 France : Philip IV. 
 
 KING EDWARD II., as we have already said, was not a wise 
 and brave man like his father, but a foolish prince, who was 
 influenced by unworthy favourites, and thought more of plea- 
 sure than of governing his kingdom. His father, Edward I., 
 would have entered Scotland at the head of a large army 
 before he had left Bruce time to reconquer so much of the 
 country. But we have seen that, very fortunately for the 
 Scots, that wise and skilful, though ambitious King, died 
 when he was on the point of marching into Scotland. His son 
 Edward had afterwards neglected the Scottish war, and thus 
 lost the opportunity of defeating Bruce when his force was 
 small. But now when Sir Philip Mowbray, the governor of 
 Stirling, came to London to tell the King that Stirling, the 
 last Scottish town of importance which remained in possession 
 of the English, was to be surrendered if it were not relieved 
 by force of arms before midsummer, then all the English 
 nobles called out it would be a sin and shame to permit the 
 fair conquest which Edward I. had made to be forfeited to the 
 Scots for want of fighting. It was, therefore, resolved, that 
 the King should go himself to Scotland, with as great forces 
 as he could possibly muster. 
 
 King Edward the Second, therefore, assembled one of the 
 greatest armies which a King of England ever commanded. 
 There were troops brought from all his dominions. Many 
 brave soldiers from the provinces which the King of England 
 possessed in France, many Irish, many Welsh, and all the 
 great English nobles and barons, with their followers, were 
 assembled in one great army. The number was not less than 
 one hundred thousand men. 
 
 King Robert the Bruce summoned all his nobles and barons 
 to join him, when he heard of the great preparation which the
 
 92 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. X 
 
 King of England was making. They were not so numerous 
 as the English by many thousand men. In fact, his whole 
 army did not very much exceed thirty thousand, and they 
 were much worse armed than the wealthy Englishmen ; but 
 then Robert, who was at their head, was one of the most 
 expert generals of the time ; and the officers he had under 
 him were his brother Edward, his nephew Randolph, his 
 faithful follower the Douglas, and other brave and experienced 
 leaders, who commanded the same men that had been accus- 
 tomed to fight and gain victories under every disadvantage of 
 situation and numbers. 
 
 The King, on his part, studied how he might supply, by 
 address and stratagem, what he wanted in numbers and 
 strength. He knew the superiority of the English, both in 
 their heavy-armed cavalry, which were much better mounted 
 and armed than that of the Scots, and in their archers, who 
 were better trained than any others in the world. Both these 
 advantages he resolved to provide against With this purpose, 
 he led his army down into a plain near Stirling, called the 
 Park, near which, and beneath it, the English army must needs 
 pass through a boggy country, broken with watercourses, 
 while the Scots occupied hard dry ground. He then caused all 
 the ground upon the front of his line of battle, where cavalry 
 were likely to act, to be dug full of holes, about as deep as 
 a man's knee. They were filled with light brushwood, and 
 the turf was laid on the top, so that it appeared a plain field, 
 while in reality it was all full of these pits as a honeycomb is 
 of holes. He also, it is said, caused steel spikes, called cal- 
 throps, to be scattered up and down in the plain, where the 
 English cavalry were most likely to advance, trusting in that 
 manner to lame and destroy their horses. 
 
 When the Scottish army was drawn up, the line stretched 
 north and south. On the south, it was terminated by the 
 banks of the brook called Bannockburn, which are so rocky 
 that no troops could attack them there. On the left, the 
 Scottish line extended near to the town of Stirling. Bruce 
 reviewed his troops very carefully; all the useless servants, 
 drivers of carts, and such like, of whom there were very many, 
 he ordered to go behind a height, afterwards, in memory of 
 the event, called the Gillies' Hill, that is, the Servants' hill. 
 He then spoke to the soldiers, and expressed his determination
 
 1314 BATfLE OF BANNOCKBURN 93 
 
 to gain the victory, or to lose his life on the field of battle. 
 He desired that all those who did not propose to fight to the 
 last should leave the field before the battle began, and that 
 none should remain except those who were determined to take 
 the issue of victory or death, as God should send it. 
 
 When the main body of his army was thus placed in order, 
 the King posted Randolph, with a body of horse, near to the 
 church of St. Ninian's, commanding him to use the utmost 
 diligence to prevent any succours from being thrown into 
 Stirling Castle. He then despatched James of Douglas, and 
 Sir Robert Keith, the Mareschal of the Scottish army, in 
 order that they might survey, as nearly as they could, the 
 English force, which was now approaching from Falkirk. 
 They returned with information that the approach of that 
 vast host was one of the most beautiful and terrible sights 
 which could be seen, that the whole country seemed covered 
 with men-at-arms on horse and foot, that the number of 
 standards, banners, and pennons (all flags of different kinds), 
 made so gallant a show that the bravest and most numerous 
 host in Christendom might be alarmed to see King Edward 
 moving against them. 
 
 It was upon the 23d of June (1314) the King of Scotland 
 heard the news, that the English were approaching Stirling. 
 He drew out his army, therefore, in the order which he had 
 before resolved on. After a short time Bruce, who was looking 
 out anxiously for the enemy, saw a body of English cavalry 
 trying to get into Stirling from the eastward. This was the 
 Lord Clifford, who, with a chosen body of eight hundred 
 horse, had been detached to relieve the castle. 
 
 " See, Randolph," said the King to his nephew, " there is 
 a rose fallen from your chaplet." By this he meant, that 
 Randolph had lost some honour, by suffering the enemy to 
 pass where he had been stationed to hinder them. Randolph 
 made no reply, but rushed against Clifford with little more 
 than half his number. The Scots were on foot The English 
 turned to charge them with their lances, and Randolph drew 
 up his men in close order to receive the onset. He seemed 
 to be in so much danger that Douglas asked leave to go and 
 assist him. The King refused him permission. 
 
 " Let Randolph," he said, " redeem his own fault ; I cannot 
 break the order of battle for his sake." Still the danger
 
 94 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. X 
 
 appeared greater, and the English horse seemed entirely to 
 encompass the small handful of Scottish infantry. " So please 
 you," said Douglas to the King, " my heart will not suffer me 
 to stand idle and see Randolph perish I must go to his 
 assistance." He rode off accordingly; but long before they 
 had reached the place of combat, they saw the English horses 
 galloping off, many with empty saddles. 
 
 "Halt! "said Douglas to his men, "Randolph has gained 
 the day ; since we were not soon enough to help him in the 
 battle, do not let us lessen his glory by approaching the field." 
 Now, that was nobly done ; especially as Douglas and Randolph 
 were always contending which should rise highest in the good 
 opinion of the King and the nation. 
 
 The van of the English army now came in sight, and a 
 number of their bravest knights drew near to see what the 
 Scots were doing. They saw King Robert dressed in his 
 armour, and distinguished by a gold crown, which he wore 
 over his helmet. He was not mounted on his great war- 
 horse, because he did not expect to fight that evening. But 
 he rode on a little pony up and down the ranks of his army, 
 putting his men in order, and carried in his hand a sort of 
 battle-axe made of steel. When the King saw the English 
 horsemen draw near, he advanced a little before his own men, 
 that he might look at them more nearly. 
 
 There was a knight among the English, called Sir Henry de 
 Bohun, who thought this would be a good opportunity to gain 
 great fame to himself, and put an end to the war, by killing 
 King Robert The King being poorly mounted, and having 
 no knee, Bohun galloped on him suddenly and furiously, 
 thinking, with his long spear, and his tall powerful horse, 
 easily to bear him down to the ground. King Robert saw 
 him, and permitted him to come very near, then suddenly 
 turned his pony a little to one side, so that Sir Henry missed 
 him with the lance-point, and was in the act of being carried 
 past him by the career of his horse. But as he passed, King 
 Robert rose up in his stirrups, and struck Sir Henry on the 
 head with his battle-axe so terrible a blow, that it broke to 
 pieces his iron helmet as if it had been a nut-shell, and hurled 
 him from his saddle. He was dead before he reached the 
 ground. This gallant action was blamed by the Scottish 
 leaders, who thought Bruce ought not to have exposed him-
 
 ij 14 BATTLE OF BANNOCKBUKN 95 
 
 self to so much danger when the safety of the whole arrny de- 
 pended on him. The King only kept looking at his weapon, 
 which was injured by the force of the blow, and said, " I have 
 broken my good battle-axe." 
 
 The next morning being the 24th June, at break of day the 
 battle began in terrible earnest. The English as they advanced 
 saw the Scots getting into line. The Abbot of Inchaffray 
 walked through their ranks barefooted, and exhorted them to 
 fight for their freedom. They kneeled down as he passed, and 
 prayed to Heaven for victory. King Edward, who saw this, 
 called out, " They kneel down they are asking forgiveness." 
 "Yes," said a celebrated English baron, called Ingelram de 
 Umphraville, "but they ask it from God, not from us these 
 men will conquer, or die upon the field." 
 
 The English King ordered his men to begin the battle. 
 The archers then bent their bows, and began to shoot so closely 
 together that the arrows fell like flakes of snow on a Christmas 
 day. They killed many of the Scots, and might, as at Falkirk 
 and other places, have decided the victory; but Bruce, as I 
 told you before, was prepared for them. He had in readiness 
 a body of men-at-arms, well mounted, who rode at full gallop 
 among the archers, and as they had no weapons save their bows 
 and arrows, which they could not use when they were attacked 
 hand to hand, they were cut down in great numbers by the 
 Scottish horsemen, and thrown into total confusion. 
 
 The fine English cavalry then advanced to support their 
 archers, and to attack the Scottish line. But coming over the 
 ground which was dug full of pits, the horses fell into these 
 holes, and the riders lay tumbling about, without any means of 
 defence, and unable to rise, from the weight of their armour. 
 The Englishmen began to fall into general disorder ; and the 
 Scottish King, bringing up more of his forces, attacked and 
 pressed them still more closely. 
 
 On a sudden, while the battle was obstinately maintained on 
 both sides, an event happened which decided the victory. The 
 servants and attendants on the Scottish camp had, as I told 
 you, been sent behind the army to a place afterwards called the 
 Gillies' Hill. But when they saw that their masters were likely 
 to gain the day, they rushed from their place of concealment 
 with such weapons as they could get, that they might have 
 their share in the victory and in the spoil. The English, see-
 
 96 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. X 
 
 ing them come suddenly over the hill, mistook this disorderly 
 rabble for another army coming to sustain the Scots, and, losing 
 all heart, began to shift every man for himself. Edward left 
 the field as fast as he could ride. A valiant knight, Sir Giles 
 de Argentine, much renowned in the wars of Palestine, attended 
 the King till he got him out of the press of the combat. But 
 he would retreat no farther. " It is not my custom," he said, 
 " to fly." With that he took leave of the King, set spurs to 
 his horse, and calling out his war-cry of Argentine ! Argentine ! 
 he rushed into the thickest of the Scottish ranks, and was killed. 
 
 The young Earl of Gloucester was also slain, fighting vali- 
 antly. The Scots would have saved him, but as he had not 
 put on his armorial bearings, they did not know him, and he 
 was cut to pieces. 
 
 Edward first fled to Stirling Castle, and entreated admittance; 
 But Sir Philip Mowbray, the governor, reminded the fugitive 
 Sovereign that he was obliged to surrender the castle next day, 
 so Edward was fain to fly through the Torwood, closely pursued 
 by Douglas with a body of cavalry. An odd circumstance hap- 
 pened during the chase, which showed how loosely some of the 
 Scottish barons of that day held their political opinions. As 
 Douglas was riding furiously after Edward, he met a Scottish 
 knight, Sir Laurence Abernethy, with twenty horse. Sir Lau- 
 rence had hitherto owned the English interest, and was bring- 
 ing this band of followers to serve King Edward's army. But 
 learning from Douglas that the English King was entirely 
 defeated, he changed sides on the spot, and was easily pre- 
 vailed upon to join Douglas in pursuing the unfortunate Edward, 
 with the very followers whom he had been leading to join his 
 standard. 
 
 Douglas and Abernethy continued the chase, not giving King 
 Edward time to alight from horseback even for an instant, 
 and followed him as far as Dunbar, where the English still 
 had a friend in the governor, Patrick, Earl of March. The 
 earl received Edward in his forlorn condition, and furnished 
 him with a fishing skiff, or small ship, in which he escaped to 
 England, having entirely lost his fine army, and a great number 
 of his bravest nobles. 
 
 The English never before or afterwards, whether in France 
 or Scotland, lost so dreadful a battle as that of Bannockburn, 
 nor did the Scots ever gain one of the same importance. Many
 
 1314 BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN 97 
 
 of the best and bravest of the English nobility and gentry, as 
 I have said, lay dead on the field ; a great many more were 
 made prisoners; and the whole of King Edward's immense 
 army was dispersed or destroyed. 1 
 
 The English, after this great defeat, were no longer in a 
 condition to support their pretensions to be masters of Scot- 
 land, or to continue, as they had done for nearly twenty years, 
 to send armies into that country to overcome it. On the con- 
 trary, they became for a time scarce able to defend their own 
 frontiers against King Robert and his soldiers. 
 
 There were several battles fought within England itself, in 
 which the English had greatly the worst. One of these took 
 place near Mitton, in Yorkshire. So many priests took part 
 in the fight, that the Scots called it the Chapter of Mitton, 2 
 a meeting of the clergymen belonging to a cathedral being 
 
 1 " Multitudes of the English were drowned when attempting to cross 
 the river Forth. Many, in their flight, fell into the pits, which they seem 
 to have avoided in their first attack, and were there suffocated or slain ; 
 others, who vainly endeavoured to pass the rugged banks of the stream 
 called Bannockburn, were slain in that quarter ; so that this little river 
 was so completely heaped up with the dead bodies of men and horses, that 
 men might pass dry over the mass as if it were a bridge. Thirty thousand 
 of the English were left dead upon the field ; and amongst these two 
 hundred belted knights, and seven hundred esquires. A large body of 
 Welsh fled from the field, under the command of Sir Maurice Berkclay, 
 but the greater part of them were slain, or taken prisoners, before they 
 reached England. Such, also, might have been the fate of the King of 
 England himself, had Bruce been able to spare a sufficient body of cavalry 
 to follow up the fight." "The riches obtained by the plunder of the 
 English, and the subsequent ransom for the multitude of the prisoners, 
 must have been very great. Their exact amount cannot be easily esti- 
 mated, but some idea of its greatness may be formed by the tone of deep 
 lamentation assumed by the Monk of Malmesburg. ' day of vengeance 
 and of misfortune !' says he (p. 152) 'day of disgrace and perdition! 
 unworthy to be included in the circle of the year, which tarnished the 
 fame of England, and enriched the Scots with the plunder of the precious 
 stuffs of our nation, to the extent of two hundred thousand pounds (nearly 
 three millions of our present money). Alas ! of how many noble barons, 
 and accomplished knights, and high-spirited young soldiers, of what a 
 store of excellent arms, and golden vessels, and costly vestments, did one 
 short and miserable day deprive us ! ' The loss of the Scots in the battle 
 was incredibly small, and proves how effectually the Scottish squares had 
 repelled the English cavalry. Sir William Vipont, and Sir Walter Ross, 
 the bosom friend of Edward Bruce, were the only persons of note who 
 were slain." TYTLER. 
 
 8 "20th September 1319. Three hundred ecclesiastics fell in this 
 battle." HAILES. 
 
 i 7
 
 98 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XI 
 
 called a Chapter. There was a great slaughter in and after 
 the action. The Scots laid waste the country of England as 
 far as the gates of York, and enjoyed a considerable superiority 
 over their ancient enemies, who had so lately threatened to 
 make them subjects of England. 
 
 Thus did Robert Bruce arise from the condition of an exile, 
 hunted with bloodhounds like a stag or beast of prey, to the 
 rank of an independent sovereign, universally acknowledged 
 to be one of the wisest and bravest kings who then lived. The 
 nation of Scotland was also raised once more from the situation 
 of a distressed and conquered province to that of a free and 
 independent state, governed by its own laws, and subject to its 
 own princes ; and although the country was, after the Bruce's 
 death, often subjected to great loss and distress, both by the 
 hostility of the English, and by the unhappy civil wars among 
 the Scots themselves, yet they never afterwards lost the freedom 
 for which Wallace had laid down his life, and which King 
 Robert had recovered, not less by his wisdom than by his 
 weapons. And therefore most just it is, that while the country 
 of Scotland retains any recollection of its history, the memory of 
 those brave warriors and faithful patriots should be remembered 
 with honour and gratitude. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Edward Bruce The Douglas Randolph, Earl of Murray 
 Death of Robert Bruce 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Edward II., Edward III. 
 France-. Louis X., Philip V., Charles IV., Philip VI. 
 
 I3IS-I330 
 
 You will be naturally curious to hear what became of Edward, 
 the brother of Robert Bruce, who was so courageous, and 
 at the same time so rash. You must know that the Irish, 
 at that time, had been almost fully conquered by the English ; 
 but becoming weary of them, the Irish chiefs, or at least a 
 great many of them, invited Edward Bruce to come over,
 
 IJI5-I3 18 EDWARD BRUCE 99 
 
 drive out the English, and become their king. He was willing 
 enough to go, for he had always a high courageous spirit, and 
 desired to obtain fame and dominion by fighting. Edward 
 Bruce was as good a soldier as his brother, but not so prudent 
 and cautious; for, except in the affair of killing the Ked 
 Comyn, which was a wicked and violent action, Robert Bruce, 
 in his latter days, showed himself as wise as he was courage- 
 ous. However, he was well contented that his brother Edward, 
 who had always fought so bravely for him, should be raised up 
 to be King of Ireland. Therefore King Robert not only gave 
 him an army to assist in making the conquest, but passed over 
 the sea to Ireland himself in person, with a considerable body 
 of troops, to assist him. The Bruces gained several battles, 
 and penetrated far into Ireland ; but the English forces were 
 too numerous, and so many of the Irish joined with them rather 
 than with Edward Bruce, that King Robert and his brother 
 were obliged to retreat before them. 
 
 The chief commander of the English was a great soldier, 
 called Sir Edmund Butler, and he had assembled a much 
 greater army than Edward Bruce and his brother King Robert 
 had to oppose to him. The Scots were obliged to retreat every 
 morning, that they might not be forced to battle by an army 
 more numerous than their own. 
 
 I have often told you that King Robert the Bruce was a 
 wise and a good prince. But a circumstance happened during 
 this retreat which showed he was also a kind and humane 
 man. It was one morning, when the English and their Irish 
 auxiliaries were pressing hard upon Bruce, who had given his 
 army orders to continue a hasty retreat ; for to have risked a 
 battle with a much more numerous army, and in the midst of 
 a country which favoured his enemies, would have been ex- 
 tremely imprudent. On a sudden, just as King Robert was 
 about to mount his horse, he heard a woman shrieking in 
 despair. "What is the matter 1" said the King; and he was 
 informed by his attendants that a poor woman, a laundress, or 
 washerwoman, mother of an infant who had just been born, waa 
 about to be left behind the army, as being too weak to travel. 
 The mother was shrieking for fear of falling into the hands of 
 the Irish, who were accounted very cruel, and there were no 
 carriages nor means of sending the woman and her infant on in 
 safety. They must needs be abandoned if the army retreated.
 
 100 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. X) 
 
 King Robert was silent for a moment when he heard this 
 story, being divided betwixt the feelings of humanity, occa- 
 sioned by the poor woman's distress, and the danger to which 
 a halt would expose his army. At last he looked round on his 
 officers, with eyes which kindled like fire. "Ah, gentlemen," 
 he said, " never let it be said that a man who was born of a 
 woman, and nursed by a woman's tenderness, should leave a 
 mother and an infant to the mercy of barbarians ! In the name 
 of God, let the odds and the risk be what they will, I will 
 fight Edmund Butler rather than leave these poor creatures 
 behind me. Let the army, therefore, draw up in line of battle, 
 instead of retreating." 
 
 The story had a singular conclusion; for the English 
 general, seeing that Robert the Bruce halted and offered him 
 battle, and knowing that the Scottish King was one of the 
 best generals then living, conceived that he must have received 
 some large supply of forces, and was afraid to attack him. 
 And thus Bruce had an opportunity to send off the poor woman 
 and her child, and then to retreat at his leisure, without suffer- 
 ing any inconvenience from the halt. 
 
 But Robert was obliged to leave the conquest of Ireland to 
 
 his brother Edward, being recalled by pressing affairs to his 
 
 own country. Edward, who was rash as he was brave, engaged, 
 
 against the advice of his best officers, in battle with an English 
 
 general, called Sir Piers de Bermingham. The Scots were 
 
 surrounded on all sides, but continued to defend themselves 
 
 valiantly, and Edward Bruce showed the example by fighting 
 
 in the very front of the battle. At length a strong English 
 
 champion, called John Maupas, engaged Edward hand to 
 
 hand ; and they fought till they killed each other. 
 
 5< i3i8? t Maupas was found lying after the battle upon the 
 
 body of Bruce , both were dead men. 1 After Edward 
 
 Bruce's death, the Scots gave up further attempts to conquer 
 
 Ireland. 
 
 Robert Bruce continued to reign gloriously for several 
 years, and was so constantly victorious over the English, that 
 
 1 "The corpse of Edward Bruce was not treated with honours like 
 those which the King of Scots bestowed on the brave English who fell at 
 Bannockburn. His body was quartered, and distributed for a public 
 spectacle over Ireland. Bermingham presented the head of Edward 
 Bruce to the English King, and obtained the dignity of Earl of Louth, as 
 a reward of his services." HAILES.
 
 1327 
 
 DOUGLAS AND MURRAY 101 
 
 the Scots seemed during his government to have acquired a 
 complete superiority over their neighbours. But then we 
 must remember that Edward II., who then reigned in Eng- 
 land, was a foolish prince, and listened to bad counsels ; so that 
 it is no wonder that he was beaten by so wise and experienced 
 a general as Robert Bruce, who had fought his way to the 
 crown through so many disasters, and acquired in consequence 
 so much renown that, as I have often said, he was generally 
 accounted one of the best soldiers and wisest sovereigns of his 
 time. 
 
 In the last year of Robert the Brace's reign he became 
 extremely sickly and infirm, chiefly owing to a disorder called 
 the leprosy, which he had caught during the hardships and 
 misfortunes of his youth, when he was so frequently obliged 
 to hide himself in woods and morasses, without a roof to shelter 
 him. He lived at a castle called Cardross, on the beautiful 
 banks of the river Clyde, near to where it joins the sea ; and 
 his chief amusement was to go upon the river, and down to the 
 sea in a ship, which he kept for his pleasure. He was no 
 longer able to sit upon his war-horse, or to lead his army to 
 the field. 
 
 While Brace was in this feeble state, Edward II., King of 
 England, died, and was succeeded by his son Edward III. 
 He turned out afterwards to be one of the wisest and bravest 
 kings whom England ever had ; but when he first mounted the 
 throne he was very young, and under the entire management 
 of his mother, who governed by means of a wicked favourite 
 called Mortimer. 
 
 The war between the English and the Scots still lasting at 
 the time, Brace sent his two great commanders, the Good 
 Lord James Douglas, and Thomas Randolph, Earl of Murray, 
 to lay waste the counties of Northumberland and Durham, 
 and distress the English as much as they could. 
 
 Their soldiers were about twenty thousand in number, all 
 lightly armed, and mounted on horses that were but small in 
 height, but excessively active. The men themselves carried 
 no provision, except a bag of oatmeal ; and each had at his 
 saddle a small plate of iron called a girdle, on which, when 
 they pleased, they could bake the oatmeal into cakes. They 
 killed the cattle of the English, as they travelled through the 
 country, roasted the flesh on wooden spits, or boiled it in the
 
 102 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XI 
 
 skins of the animals themselves, putting in a little water with 
 the beef, to prevent the fire from burning the hide to pieces. 
 This was rough cookery. They made their shoes, or rather 
 sandals, in as coarse a way ; cutting them out of the raw hides 
 of the cattle, and fitting them to their ankles, like what are 
 now called short gaiters. As this sort of buskin had the hairy 
 side of the hide outermost, the English called those who wore 
 them rough-footed Scots, and sometimes, from the colour of the 
 hide, red-shanks. 
 
 As such forces needed to cany nothing with them, either 
 for provisions or ammunition, the Scots moved with amazing 
 speed, from mountain to mountain, and from glen to glen, pillag- 
 ing and destroying the country wherever they came. In the 
 meanwhile, the young King of England pursued them with a 
 much larger army ; but as it was encumbered by the necessity 
 of carrying provisions in great quantities, and by the slow 
 motions of men in heavy armour, they could not come up with 
 the Scots, although they saw every day the smoke of the 
 houses and villages which they were burning. The King of 
 England was extremely angry ; for, though only a boy of 
 sixteen years old, he longed to fight the Scots, and to chastise 
 them for the mischief they were doing to his country; and 
 at length he grew so impatient, that he offered a large 
 reward to any one who would show him where the Scottish 
 army were. 
 
 At length, after the English host had suffered severe hard- 
 ships, from want of provisions, and fatiguing journeys through 
 fords, and swamps, and morasses, a gentleman named Rokeby 
 came into the camp, and claimed the reward which the King 
 had offered. He told the King that he had been made prisoner 
 by the Scots, and that they had said they should be as glad 
 to meet the English King as lie to see them. Accordingly, 
 Rokeby guided the English army to the place where the Scots 
 lay encamped. 
 
 But the English King was no nearer to the battle which 
 he desired ; for Douglas and Randolph, knowing the force and 
 numbers of the English army, had taken up their camp on a 
 steep hill, at the bottom of which ran a deep river, called the 
 Wear, having a channel filled with large stones, so that there 
 was no possibility for the English to attack the Scots without 
 crossing the water, and then climbing up the steep hill in the
 
 1327 DOUGLAS AND MURRAY 103 
 
 very face of their enemy ; a risk which was too great to be 
 attempted. 
 
 Then the King sent a message of defiance to the Scottish 
 generals, inviting them either to draw back their forces, and 
 allow him freedom to cross the river, and time to place his 
 army in order of battle on the other side, that they might fight 
 fairly, or offering, if they liked it better, to permit them to cross 
 over to his side without opposition, that they might join battle 
 on a fair field. Randolph and Douglas did nothing but laugh 
 at this message. They said, that when they fought, it should 
 be at their own pleasure, and not because the King of England 
 chose to ask for a battle. They reminded him, insultingly, 
 how they had been in his country for many days, burning, 
 taking spoil, and doing what they thought fit. If the King 
 was displeased with this, they said, he must find his way across 
 the river to fight them the best way he could. 
 
 The English King, determined not to quit sight of the 
 Scots, encamped on the opposite side of the river to watch 
 their motions, thinking that want of provisions would oblige 
 them to quit their strong position on the mountains. But the 
 Scots once more showed Edward their dexterity in marching, 
 by leaving their encampment, and taking up another post, 
 even stronger and more difficult to approach than the first 
 which they had occupied. King Edward followed, and again 
 encamped opposite to his dexterous and troublesome enemies, 
 desirous to bring them to a battle, when he might hope to 
 gain an easy victory, having more than double the number of 
 the Scottish army, all troops of the very best quality. 
 
 While the armies lay thus opposed to each other, Douglas 
 resolved to give the young King of England a lesson in the 
 art of war. At the dead of night he left the Scottish camp 
 with a small body of chosen horse, not above two hundred, 
 well armed. He crossed the river in deep silence, and came 
 to the English camp, which was but carelessly guarded. Seeing 
 this, Douglas rode past the English sentinels as if he had been 
 an officer of the English army, saying, " Ha, Saint George ! 
 you keep bad watch here." In those days, you must know, the 
 English used to swear by Saint George, as the Scots did by 
 Saint Andrew. Presently after, Douglas heard an English 
 soldier, who lay stretched by the fire, say to his comrade, 
 " I cannot tell what is to happen to us in this place ; but, for
 
 104 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XI 
 
 my part, I have a great fear of the Black Douglas playing us 
 some trick." 
 
 "You shall have cause to say so," said Douglas to him- 
 self. 
 
 When he had thus got into the midst of the English camp 
 without being discovered, he drew his sword and cut asunder 
 the ropes of a tent, calling out his usual war-cry, "Douglas, 
 Douglas ! English thieves, you are all dead men." His fol- 
 lowers immediately began to cut down and overturn the tents, 
 cutting and stabbing the English soldiers as they endeavoured 
 to get to arms. 
 
 Douglas forced his way to the pavilion of the King himself, 
 and very nearly carried that young prince prisoner out of the 
 middle of his great army. Edward's chaplain, however, and 
 many of his household, stood to arms bravely in his defence, 
 while the young King escaped by creeping away beneath the 
 canvas of his tent. The chaplain and several of the King's 
 officers were slain ; but the whole camp was now alarmed and 
 in arms, so that Douglas was obliged to retreat, which he did 
 by bursting through the English at the side of the camp 
 opposite to that by which he had entered. Being separated 
 from his men in the confusion, he was in great danger of being 
 slain by an Englishman who encountered him with a huge 
 club. This man he killed, but with considerable difficulty; 
 and then blowing his horn to collect his soldiers, 
 4th i327'f lst WQO 800n gathered around him, he returned to the 
 Scottish camp, having sustained very little loss. 
 
 Edward, much mortified at the insult which he had received, 
 became still more desirous of chastising those audacious adver- 
 saries ; and one of them at least was not unwilling to afford 
 him an opportunity of revenge. This was Thomas Randolph, 
 Earl of Murray. He asked Douglas when he returned to the 
 Scottish camp, "What he had done?" "We have drawn 
 some blood." " Ah," said the earl, " had we gone all together 
 to the night attack, we should have discomfited them." " It 
 might well have been so," said Douglas, " but the risk would 
 have been too great." "Then will we fight them in open 
 battle," said Randolph, "for if we remain here, we shall in 
 time be famished for want of provisions." " Not so," replied 
 Douglas; "we will deal with this great army of the English 
 as the fox did with the fisherman in the fable." " And how
 
 1 327 DOUGLAS AND MURRAY 105 
 
 was that?" said the Earl of Murray. Hereupon the Douglas 
 told him this story : 
 
 "A fisherman," he said, "had made a hut by a riverside, 
 that he might follow his occupation of fishing. Now, one 
 night he had gone out to look after his nets, leaving a small 
 fire in his hut ; and when he came back, behold there was a 
 fox in the cabin, taking the liberty to eat one of the finest 
 salmon he had taken. ' Ho, Mr. Robber ! ' said the fisherman, 
 drawing his sword, and standing in the doorway to prevent 
 the fox's escape, 'you shall presently die the death.' The 
 poor fox looked for some hole to get out at, but saw none; 
 whereupon he pulled down with his teeth a mantle, which was 
 lying on the bed, and dragged it across the fire. The fisherman 
 ran to snatch his mantle from the fire the fox flew out at the 
 door with the salmon ; and so," said Douglas, " shall we 
 escape the great English army by subtilty, and without risking 
 battle with so large a force." 
 
 Randolph agreed to act by Douglas's counsel, and the Scot- 
 tish army kindled great fires through their encampment, and 
 made a noise and shouting, and blowing of horns, as if they 
 meant to remain all night there, as before. But in the mean- 
 time Douglas had caused a road to be made through two miles 
 of a great morass which lay in their rear. This was done by 
 cutting down to the bottom of the bog, and filling the trench 
 with faggots of wood. Without this contrivance it would 
 have been impossible that the army could have crossed ; and 
 through this passage, which the English never suspected, 
 Douglas and Randolph, and all their men, moved at the dead 
 of night. They did not leave so much as an errand-boy 
 behind, and so bent their march towards Scotland, leaving 
 the English disappointed and affronted. Great was their 
 wonder in the morning when they saw the Scottish camp empty, 
 and found no living men in it, but two or three English 
 prisoners tied to trees, whom they had left with an insulting 
 message to the King of England, saying, "If he were dis- 
 pleased with what they had done, he might come and revenge 
 himself in Scotland." 
 
 The place where the Scots fixed this famous encampment, 
 was in the forest of Weardale, in the bishopric of Durham ; 
 and the road which they cut for the purpose of their retreat, 
 is still called the Shorn Most,
 
 106 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XI 
 
 After this a peace was concluded with Robert Bruce, on 
 terms highly honourable to Scotland; for the English King 
 renounced all pretensions to the sovereignty of the country, 
 and, moreover, gave his sister, a princess called Joanna, to be 
 wife to Robert Brace's son, called David. This treaty was 
 very advantageous for the Scots. It was called the treaty of 
 Northampton, because it was concluded at that town in the 
 year 1328. 
 
 Good King Robert did not long survive this joyful event. 
 He was not aged more than fifty-four years, but, as I said 
 before, his bad health was caused by the hardships which he 
 sustained during his youth, and at length he became very ill 
 Finding that he could not recover, he assembled around his 
 bedside the nobles and counsellors in whom he most trusted. 
 He told them, that now, being on his deathbed, he sorely re- 
 pented all his misdeeds, and particularly, that he had, in his 
 passion, killed Comyn with his own hand, in the church and 
 before the altar. He said that if he had lived, he had intended 
 to go to Jerusalem, to make war upon the Saracens who held 
 the Holy Land, as some expiation for the evil deeds he had 
 done. But since he was about to die, he requested of his 
 dearest friend and bravest warrior, and that was the Good 
 Lord James Douglas, that he should carry his heart to the 
 Holy Land. 
 
 To make you understand the meaning of this request, I 
 must tell you, that at this time a people called Saracens, who 
 believed in the false prophet Mahomet, had obtained by con- 
 quest possession of Jerusalem, and the other cities and places 
 which are mentioned in the Holy Scripture ; and the Christians 
 of Europe, who went thither as pilgrims to worship at these 
 places, where so many miracles had been wrought, were insulted 
 by these heathen Saracens. Hence many armies of Christians 
 went from their own countries out of every kingdom of Europe, 
 to fight against these Saracens ; and believed that they were 
 doing a great service to religion, and that what sins they had 
 committed would be pardoned by God Almighty, because they 
 had taken a part in this which they called a holy warfare. 
 You may remember that Bruce thought of going upon 
 this expedition when he was in despair of recovering the 
 crown of Scotland ; and now he desired his heart to be carried 
 to Jerusalem after his death, and requested Lord James of
 
 /3?-S-i330 DEATH OF BRUCE 107 
 
 Douglas to take the charge of it. Douglas wept bitterly as 
 he accepted this office, the last mark of the Brace's confidence 
 and friendship. 
 
 The King soon afterwards expired [at Cardrbss] ; and his 
 heart was taken out from his body and embalmed, 
 that is, prepared with spices and perfumes, that it n \^ e 
 might remain a long time fresh and uncorrupted. 
 Then the Douglas caused a case of silver to be made, into 
 which he put the Brace's heart, and wore it around his neck, 
 by a string of silk and gold. And he set forward for the Holy 
 Land, with a gallant train of the bravest men in Scotland, 
 who, to show their value and sorrow for their brave King 
 Robert, resolved to attend his heart to the city of Jerusalem. 
 It had been much better for Scotland if the Douglas and his 
 companions had stayed at home to defend their own country, 
 which was shortly afterwards in great want of their assistance. 
 
 Neither did Douglas ever get to the end of his journey. 
 In going to Palestine he landed in Spain, where the Saracen 
 King, or Sultan of Grenada, called Osmyn, was invading the 
 realms of Alphonso, the Spanish King of Castile. King Al- 
 phonso received Douglas with great honour and distinction, 
 and people came from all parts to see the great soldier, whose 
 fame was well known through every part of the Christian 
 world. King Alphonso easily persuaded the Scottish earl, 
 that he would do good service to the Christian cause, by 
 assisting him to drive back the Saracens of Grenada, before 
 proceeding on his voyage to Jerusalem. Lord Douglas and 
 his followers went accordingly to a great battle against Osmyn, 
 and had little difficulty in defeating the Saracens who were 
 opposed to them. But being ignorant of the mode of fighting 
 among the cavalry of the East, the Scots pursued the chase 
 too far, and the Moors, when they saw them scattered and 
 separated from each other, turned suddenly back, with a loud 
 cry of Allah illah Allah, which is their shout of battle, and 
 surrounded such of the Scottish knights and squires as had 
 advanced too hastily, and were dispersed from each other. 
 
 In this new skirmish, Douglas saw Sir William St. Clair of 
 Roslyn fighting desperately, surrounded by many Moors, who 
 were hewing at him with their sabres. " Yonder worthy knight 
 will be slain," Douglas said, "unless he have instant help." 
 With that he galloped to his rescue, but presently was himself
 
 108 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XI 
 
 also surrounded by many Moors. When he found the enemy 
 press so thick round him, as to leave him no chance of escap- 
 ing, the Earl took from his neck the Bruce's heart, and speak- 
 ing to it, as he would have done to the King had he been 
 alive, " Pass first in fight," he said, " as thou were wont to 
 do, and Douglas will follow thee, or die." He then threw the 
 King's heart among the enemy, and rushing forward to the 
 place where it fell, was there slain. His body was found lying 
 above the silver case, as if it had been his last object to defend 
 the Bruce's heart. 
 
 This Good Lord James of Douglas was one of the best and 
 wisest soldiers that ever drew a sword. He was said to have 
 fought in seventy battles, being beaten in thirteen, and victori- 
 ous in fifty-seven. The English accused him of being cruel ; 
 and it is said that he had such a hatred of the English archers, 
 that when he made one of them prisoner, he would not dismiss 
 him until he was either blinded of his right eye, or had the 
 first finger of his right hand struck off. The Douglas's Larder 
 also seems a very cruel story ; but the hatred at that time 
 betwixt the two countries was at a high pitch, and Lord James 
 was much irritated at the death of his faithful servant Thomas 
 Dickson ; on ordinary occasions he was mild and gentle to his 
 prisoners. The Scottish historians describe the good Lord 
 James as one who was never dejected by bad fortune, or unduly 
 elated by that which was good. They say he was modest and 
 gentle in time of peace, but had a very different countenance 
 upon the day of battle. He was tall, strong, and well made, of 
 a swarthy complexion, with dark hair, from which he was called 
 the Black Douglas. He lisped a little in his speech, but in a 
 manner which became him very much. Notwithstanding the 
 many battles in which he had fought, his face had escaped 
 without a wound. A brave Spanish knight at the court of 
 King Alphonso, whose face was scarred by the marks of Moor- 
 ish sabres, expressed wonder that Douglas's countenance should 
 be unmarked with wounds. Douglas replied modestly, he 
 thanked God, who had always enabled his hands to guard and 
 protect his face. 
 
 Many of Douglas's followers were slain in the battle in 
 which he himself fell. The rest resolved not to proceed on 
 their journey to Palestine, but to return to Scotland. Since 
 the time of the Good Lord James, the Douglases have carried
 
 1330 EXPLOITS OF DOUGLAS 109 
 
 upon their shields a bloody heart, with a crown upon it, in 
 memory of this expedition. I formerly, when speaking of 
 William the Lion, explained to you, that in ancient times men 
 painted such emblems on their shields that they might be 
 known by them in battle, for their helmet hid their face ; and 
 that now, as men no longer wear armour in battle, the devices, 
 as they are called, belonging to particular families, are engraved 
 upon their seals, or upon their silver plate, or painted upon 
 their carriages. 
 
 Thus, for example, there was one of the brave knights who 
 was in the company of Douglas, and was appointed to take 
 charge of the Bruce's heart homewards again, who was called 
 Sir Simon Lockhard of Lee. He took afterwards for his de- 
 vice, and painted on his shield, a man's heart, with a padlock 
 upon it, in memory of Bruce's heart, which was padlocked in 
 the silver case. For this reason, men changed Sir Simon's 
 name from Lockhard to Lockheart, and all who are descended 
 from Sir Simon are called Lockhart to this day. Did you ever 
 hear of such a name, Master Hugh Littlejohn ? 
 
 Well, such of the Scottish knights as remained alive re- 
 turned to their own country. They brought back the heart 
 of the Bruce, and the bones of the Good Lord James. These 
 last were interred in the church of St. Bride, where Thomas 
 Dickson and Douglas held so terrible a Palm Sunday. The 
 Bruce's heart was buried below the high altar in Melrose Abbey. 
 As for his body, it was laid in the sepulchre in the midst of the 
 church of Dunfermline, under a marble stone. But the church 
 becoming afterwards ruinous, and the roof falling down with 
 age, the monument was broken to pieces, and nobody could tell 
 where it stood. But a little while before Master Hugh Little- 
 John was born, which I take to be six or seven years ago, when 
 they were repairing the church at Dunfermline, and removing 
 the rubbish, lo ! they found fragments of the marble tomb of 
 Robert Bruce. Then they began to dig farther, thinking to 
 discover the body of this celebrated monarch ; and at length 
 they came to the skeleton of a tall man, and they knew it 
 must be that of King Robert, both as he was known to 
 have been buried in a winding-sheet of cloth of gold, of 
 which many fragments were found about this skeleton, and 
 also because the breastbone appeared to have been sawed 
 through, in order to take out the heart. So orders were sent
 
 110 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XII 
 
 from the King's Court of Exchequer to guard the bones care- 
 fully, until a new tomb should be prepared, into which they 
 were laid with profound respect. A great many gentlemen 
 and ladies attended, and almost all the common people in the 
 neighbourhood ; and as the church could not hold half the 
 numbers, the people were allowed to pass through it, one after 
 another, that each one, the poorest as well as the richest, 
 might see all that remained of the great King Robert Bruce, 
 who restored the Scottish monarchy. Many people shed tears ; 
 for there was the wasted skull, which once was the head that 
 thought so wisely and boldly for his country's deliverance; 
 and there was the dry bone, which had once been the sturdy 
 arm that killed Sir Henry de Bohun, between the two armies, at 
 a single blow, on the evening before the battle of Bannockburn. 
 It is more than five hundred years since the body of Bruce 
 was first laid into the tomb ; and how many many millions of 
 men have died since that time, whose bones could not be re- 
 cognised, nor their names known, any more than those of in- 
 ferior animals ! It was a great thing to see that the wisdom, 
 courage, and patriotism of a King, could preserve him for such 
 a long time in the memory of the people over whom he once 
 reigned. But then, my dear child, you must remember, that 
 it is only desirable to be remembered for praiseworthy and 
 patriotic actions, such as those of Robert Bruce. It would be 
 better for a prince to be forgotten like the meanest peasant, 
 than to be recollected for actions of tyranny or oppression. 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Government of Scotland 
 
 I PEAE, my dear Hugh, that this will be rather a dull 
 Chapter, and somewhat difficult to be understood ; but if you 
 do not quite comprehend it at the first reading, you may per- 
 haps do so upon a second trial, and I will strive to be as plain 
 and distinct as I can. 
 
 As Scotland was never so great nor so powerful as during 
 the reign of Robert Bruce, it is a fit time to tell you the sort 
 of laws by which the people were governed, and the society 
 which then subsisted.
 
 1306-1329 GOVERNMENT OP SCOTLAND 111 
 
 And first, you must observe, that there are two kinds of 
 government ; one called despotic or absolute, in which the king 
 can do whatever he pleases with his subjects seize upon their 
 property, or deprive them at their lives at pleasure. This is 
 the case of almost all the kingdoms of the East, where the 
 kings, emperors, sultans, or whatever other name they bear, 
 may do whatever they like to their subjects, without being 
 controlled by any one. It is very unfortunate for the people 
 who live under such a government, whose subjects can be con- 
 sidered as no better than slaves, neither life nor property being 
 safe. Some kings, it is true, are good men, and use the power 
 which is put into their hands only to do good to the people. 
 But then others are thoughtless ; and cunning and wicked 
 persons contrive to get their confidence, by flattery and other 
 base means, and lead them to do injustice, even when perhaps 
 they themselves do not think of it. And, besides, there are 
 bad kings, who, if they have the uncontrolled power of taking 
 the money and the goods of their subjects, of throwing them 
 into prison, or putting them to death at their pleasure, are apt 
 to indulge their cruelty and their greediness at the expense of 
 the people, and are called by the hateful name of Tyrants. 
 
 Those states are therefore a thousand times more happy 
 which have what is called a free government ; that is, where 
 the king himself is subject to the laws, and cannot rule other- 
 wise than by means of them. In such governments the king 
 is controlled and directed by the laws, and can neither put a 
 man to death unless he has been found guilty of some crime 
 for which the law condemns him to die, nor force him to pay 
 any money beyond what the laws give the sovereign a right to 
 collect for the general expenses of the state. Almost all the 
 nations of modern Europe have been originally free govern- 
 ments ; but, in several of them, the kings have acquired a great 
 deal too much power, although not to such an unbounded 
 degree as we find in the Eastern countries. But few countries, 
 like that of Great Britain, have had the good fortune to re- 
 tain a free constitution, which protects and preserves those 
 who live under it from all oppression, or arbitrary power. We 
 owe this blessing to our brave ancestors, who were at all times 
 ready to defend these privileges with their lives ; and we are, 
 on our part, bound to hand them down, in as ample form as 
 we receive them, to the posterity who shall come after us.
 
 112 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XII 
 
 In Scotland, and through most countries of Europe, the 
 principles of .freedom were protected by the Feudal System, 
 which was now universally introduced. You recollect that the 
 king, according to that system, bestowed large estates upon 
 the nobles and great barons, who were called vassals for the 
 fiefs, or possessions, which they thus received from the king, 
 and were obliged to follow him when he summoned them to 
 battle, and to attend upon his Great Council, in which all 
 matters concerning the affairs of the kingdom were considered, 
 and resolved upon. It was in this great council, now called a 
 Parliament, that the laws of the kingdom were resolved upon, 
 or altered, at the pleasure, not of the king alone, nor of the 
 council alone, but as both the king and council should agree 
 together. I must now tell you particularly how this great 
 council was composed, and who had the privilege of sitting 
 there. 
 
 At first, there is no doubt that every vassal who held lauda 
 directly of the crown had this privilege ; and a baron, or royal 
 vassal, not only had the right, but was obliged, to attend the 
 great council of the kingdom. Accordingly, all the great 
 nobility usually came on the king's summons ; but then it was 
 very inconvenient and expensive for men of smaller estates to 
 be making long journeys to the Parliament, and remaining, 
 perhaps, for many days, or weeks, absent from their own 
 families, and their own business. Besides, if all the royal 
 vassals, or freeholders, as they began to be called, had chosen 
 to attend, the number of the assembly would have been far 
 too great for any purpose of deliberation it would not have 
 been possible to find a room large enough to hold such a meet- 
 ing, nor could any one have spoken so as to have made himself 
 understood by such an immense multitude. From this it hap- 
 pened that, instead of attending all of them in their own 
 persons, the lesser barons (as the smaller freeholders were 
 called, to distinguish them from the great nobles) assembled 
 in their different districts, or shires, as the divisions of the 
 country are termed, and there made choice of one or two of 
 the wisest and most experienced of their number to attend the 
 Parliament, or great council, in the name, and to take care of 
 the interest, of the whole body. Thus the crown vassals who 
 attended upon and composed the Parliament, or the National 
 Council of Scotland, came to consist of two different bodies ;
 
 1306-29 GOVERNMENT OF SCOTLAND 113 
 
 namely, the peers, or great nobility, whom the king especially 
 summoned, and such of the lesser barons as were sent to re- 
 present the crown vassals in the different shires or counties of 
 Scotland. But besides these two different classes, the great 
 council also contained the representatives of the clergy, and 
 of the boroughs, or considerable towns. 
 
 In the times of the Roman Catholic religion, the church- 
 men exercised very great power and authority in every king- 
 dom of Europe, and omitted no opportunity by which their 
 importance could be magnified. It is therefore not wonderful 
 that the chief men of the clergy, such as the bishops, and those 
 abbots of the great abbeys who were called mitred abbots, from 
 their being entitled to wear mitres, like bishops, should have 
 obtained seats in Parliament. They were admitted there for 
 the purpose of looking after the affairs of the church, and 
 ranked along with the peers or nobles having titles. 
 
 It remains to mention the boroughs. You must know, that 
 in order to increase the commerce and industry of the country, 
 and also to establish some balance against the immense power 
 of the great lords, the kings of Scotland, from an early period, 
 had been in the use of granting considerable privileges to many 
 of the towns in their dominions, which, in consequence of the 
 charters which they obtained from the crown, were termed 
 royal boroughs. The citizens of these boroughs had the pri- 
 vilege of electing their own magistrates, and had considerable 
 revenues, some from lands conferred on them by the king, 
 others from tolls and taxes upon commodities brought into the 
 town. These revenues were laid out by the magistrates 
 (usually called the provost and bailies), for the use of the 
 town. The same magistrates, in those warlike days, led out 
 the burghers, or townsmen, to battle, either in defence of the 
 town's lands and privileges, which were often attacked by the 
 great lords and barons in their neighbourhood, or for the pur- 
 pose of fighting against the English. The burghers were all 
 well trained to arms, and were obliged to attend the king's 
 army, or host, whenever they were summoned to do so. They 
 were also bound to defend the town itself, which had in most 
 cases walls and gates. This was called keeping watch and 
 ward. Besides other privileges, the boroughs had the very 
 important right of sending representatives or commissioners, 
 who pat in Parliament, to look after the interests of the towns 
 i 8
 
 114 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XI l 
 
 which they represented, as well as to assist in the general 
 affairs of the nation. 
 
 You may here remark that, so far as we have gone, the 
 Scottish Parliament entirely resembled the English in the 
 nature of its constitution. But there was this very material 
 difference in the mode of transacting business, that in England, 
 the peers, or great nobility, with the bishops and great abboto, 
 sat, deliberated, and voted, in a body by themselves, which was 
 called the House of Lords, or of Peers, and the representatives 
 of the counties, or shires, together with those of the boroughs, 
 occupied a different place of meeting, and were called the 
 Lower House, or House of Commons. In Scotland, on the 
 contrary, the nobles, prelates, representatives for the shires, 
 and delegates for the boroughs, all sat in the same apartment, 
 and debated and voted as members of the same assembly. 
 Since the union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland, 
 the Parliament, which represents both countries, sits and votes 
 in two distinct bodies, called the two Houses of Parliament, 
 and there are many advantages attending that form of con- 
 ducting the national business. 
 
 You now have some idea of the nature of the Parliament, or 
 grand council of the nation, and of the various classes of per- 
 sons who had a right to sit there. I am next to tell you, that 
 they were summoned together and dismissed by the king's 
 orders ; and that all business belonging to the nation was 
 transacted by their advice and opinion. Whatever measures 
 they proposed passed into laws, on receiving the consent of 
 the king, which was intimated by touching with the sceptre 
 the bills that were passed by the Parliament Thus you see 
 that the laws by which the country was governed were, in a 
 great measure, of the people's own making, being agreed to by 
 their representatives in Parliament When, in particular, it 
 was necessary to raise money for any public purpose, there 
 was a necessity for obtaining the consent of Parliament, both 
 as to the amount of the sum, and the manner in which it was 
 to be collected ; so that the king could not raise any money 
 from his subjects, without the approbation of his grand 
 council. 
 
 It may be said, in general, of the Scotch laws, that they 
 were as wisely adapted for the purpose of government as those 
 of any state in Europe, at that early period ; nay, more, that
 
 1306-29 GOVERNMENT OF SCOTLAND 115 
 
 they exhibit the strongest marks of foresight and sagacity. 
 But it was the great misfortune of Scotland, that the good 
 laws which the kings and Parliaments agreed upon were not 
 carried steadily into execution; but, on the contrary, were 
 broken through and neglected, just as if they had not existed 
 at all I will endeavour to explain some of the causes of this 
 negligence. 
 
 The principal evil was the great power of the nobility, which 
 was such as to place them almost beyond the control of the 
 king's authority. The chief noblemen had obtained the right 
 of administering justice each upon his own estate ; and there- 
 fore the whole power of detecting, trying, and punishing 
 crimes, rested in the first place with those great men. Now, 
 most of those great lords were much more interested in main- 
 taining their own authority, and extending their own power, 
 within the provinces which they occupied, than in promoting 
 general good order and tranquillity throughout the country at 
 large. They were almost constantly engaged in quarrels with 
 each other, and often with the king himself. Sometimes they 
 fought amongst themselves, sometimes they united together 
 against the sovereign. On all occasions they were disposed 
 for war, rather than peace, and therefore took little care to 
 punish the criminals who offended against public order. In- 
 stead of bringing to trial the persons who committed murder, 
 robbery, and other violent actions, they often protected them, 
 and enlisted them in their own immediate service ; and fre- 
 quently, from revenge or ambition, were actually the private 
 encouragers of the mischief which these men perpetrated. 
 
 The judges named by the king, and acting under his autho- 
 rity, had a right indeed to apprehend and to punish such offenders 
 against the public peace when they could get hold of them ; but 
 then it was very difficult to seize upon the persons accused of 
 such acts of violence, when the powerful lords in whose ter- 
 ritory they lived were disposed to assist them in concealing 
 themselves, or making their escape. And even when the 
 king's courts were able to seize such culprits, there was a law 
 which permitted the lord on whose territory the crime had 
 been committed, to demand that the accused person should be 
 delivered up to him, to be tried in his own court. A nobleman 
 or baron making such a demand was, indeed, obliged to give 
 security that he would execute justice on the persons within n
 
 116 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XII 
 
 certain reasonable time. But such was the weakness of the 
 royal government, and such the great power of the nobility, 
 and the barons of high rank, that if they once got the person 
 accused into their own hand, they might easily contrive either 
 to let him escape, or to have him acquitted after a mock trial 
 Thus it was always difficult, and often impossible, to put in 
 execution the good laws which were made in the Scottish Par- 
 liament, on account of the great power possessed by the nobles, 
 who, in order to preserve and extend their own authority, 
 threw all manner of interruption in the way of public justice. 
 
 Each of these nobles within the country which was subject 
 to him, more resembled a king himself than a subject of the 
 monarch of Scotland : and, in one or two instances, we shall 
 see that some of them became so powerful as to threaten to 
 dispossess the king of his throne and dominions. The very 
 smallest of them often made war on each other without the 
 kmg's consent, and thus there was a universal scene of disorder 
 and bloodshed through the whole country. These disorders 
 seemed to be rendered perpetual, by a custom which was called 
 by the name of deadly feud. When two men of different 
 families quarrelled, and the one injured or slew the other, the 
 relatives of the deceased, or wronged person, knowing that the 
 laws could afford them no redress, set about obtaining revenge, 
 by putting to death some relation of the individual who had 
 done the injury, without regarding how innocent the subject 
 of their vengeance might have been of the original cause of 
 offence. Then the others, in their turn, endeavoured to execute 
 a similar revenge upon some one of the family who had 
 first received the injury ; and thus the quarrel was carried on 
 from father to son, and often lasted betwixt families that were 
 neighbours and ought to have been good friends, for several 
 generations, during which tune they were said to be at deadly 
 feud with each other. 
 
 From the want of due exercise of the laws, and from the 
 revengeful disposition which led to such long and fatal quarrels, 
 the greatest distresses ensued to the country. When, for 
 example, the kings of Scotland assembled their armies, in 
 order to fight against the English, who were then the public 
 enemy, they could bring together indeed a number of brave 
 nobles, with their followers, but there always was great diffi- 
 culty, and sometimes an absolute impossibility, of making them
 
 1306-29 GOVERNMENT OF SCOTLAND 117 
 
 act together; each chief being jealous of his own authority, 
 and many of them engaged in personal quarrels, either of their 
 own making, or such as existed in consequence of this fatal 
 and cruel custom of deadly feud, which, having been originally 
 perhaps some quarrel of little importance, had become inveterate 
 by the cruelties and crimes which had been committed on both 
 sides, and was handed down from father to son. It is true, 
 that under a wise and vigorous prince, like Robert the Bruce, 
 those powerful barons were overawed by his wisdom and autho- 
 rity ; but we shall see too often, that when kings and generals 
 of inferior capacity were at their head, their quarrels amongst 
 themselves often subjected them to defeat and to disgrace. And 
 this accounts for a fact which we shall often have occasion to 
 notice, that when the Scots engaged in great battles with large 
 armies, in which, of course, many of those proud independent 
 nobles were assembled, they were frequently defeated by the 
 English : whereas, when they fought in smaller bodies with 
 the same enemy, they were much more often victorious over 
 them; because at such times the Scots were agreed among 
 themselves, and obeyed the commands of one leader, without 
 pretending to dispute his authority. 
 
 These causes of private crimes and public defeat subsisted 
 even in the midland counties of Scotland, such as the three 
 Lothians, Fifeshire, and other provinces, where the king 
 generally resided, and where he necessarily possessed most power 
 to maintain his own authority, and enforce the execution of the 
 laws. But there were two great divisions of the country, the 
 Highlands namely, and the Borders, which were so much 
 wilder and more barbarous than the others, that they might 
 be said to be altogether without law ; and although they were 
 nominally subjected to the King of Scotland, yet when he de- 
 sired to execute any justice in either of those great districts, he 
 could not do so otherwise than by marching there in person, 
 at the head of a strong body of forces, and seizing upon the 
 offenders, and putting them to death with little or no form of 
 trial. Such a rough course of justice, perhaps, made these 
 disorderly countries quiet for a short time, but it rendered them 
 still more averse to the royal government in their hearts, and 
 disposed on the slightest occasion to break out, either into 
 disorders amongst themselves, or into open rebellion. I must 
 give you some more particular account of these wild and
 
 118 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XII 
 
 uncivilised districts of Scotland, and of the particular sort of 
 people who were their inhabitants, that you may know what I 
 mean when I speak of Highlanders and Borderers. 
 
 The Highlands of Scotland, so called from the rocky and 
 mountainous character of the country, consist of a very large 
 proportion of the northern parts of that kingdom. It was in- 
 to these pathless wildernesses that the Romans drove the 
 ancient inhabitants of Great Britain; and it was from these 
 that they afterwards sallied to invade and distress that part of 
 Britain which the Romans had conquered, and in some degree 
 civilised. The inhabitants of the Highlands spoke, and still 
 speak, a language totally different from the Lowland Scots. 
 That last language does not greatly differ from English, and 
 the inhabitants of both countries easily understand each other, 
 though neither of them comprehend the Gaelic, which is the 
 language of the Highlanders. The dress of these mountaineers 
 was also different from that of the Lowlanders. They wore a 
 plaid, or mantle of frieze, or of a striped stuff called tartan, 
 one end of which being wrapt round the waist, formed a short 
 petticoat, which descended to the knee, while the rest was 
 folded round them like a sort of cloak. They had buskins 
 made of raw hide; and those who could get a bonnet, had 
 that covering for their heads, though many never wore one 
 during their whole lives, but had only their own shaggy hair 
 tied back by a leathern strap. They went always armed, carry- 
 ing bows and arrows, large swords, which they wielded with 
 both hands, called claymores, pole-axes, and daggers for close 
 fight. For defence, they had a round wooden shield, or target, 
 stuck full of nails ; and their great men had shirts of mail, not 
 unlike to the flannel shirts now worn, only composed of links 
 of iron instead of threads of worsted ; but the common men 
 were so far from desiring armour, that they sometimes threw 
 their plaids away, and fought in their shirts, which they wore 
 very long and large, after the Irish fashion. 
 
 This part of the Scottish nation was divided into clans, that 
 is, tribes. The persons composing each of these clans believed 
 themselves all to be descended, at some distant period, from 
 the same common ancestor, whose name they usually bore. 
 Thus, one tribe was called MacDonald, which signifies the sons 
 of Donald; another MacGregor, or the sons of Gregor; 
 MacNeil, the sons of Neil, and so on. Every one of these
 
 1306-29 GOVERNMENT OF SCOTLAND 119 
 
 tribes had its own separate chief, or commander, whom they 
 supposed to be the immediate representative of the great father 
 of the tribe from whom they were all descended. To this 
 chief they paid the most unlimited obedience, and willingly 
 followed his commands in peace or war ; not caring although, 
 in doing so, they transgressed the laws of the king, or went 
 into rebellion against the king himself. Each tribe lived in a 
 valley, or district of the mountains, separated from the others ; 
 and they often made war upon, and fought desperately with 
 each other. But with Lowlanders they were always at war. 
 They differed from them in language, in dress, and in manners ; 
 and they believed that the richer grounds of the low country 
 had formerly belonged to their ancestors, and therefore they 
 made incursions upon it, and plundered it without mercy. The 
 Lowlanders, on the other hand, equal in courage and superior 
 in discipline, gave many severe checks to the Highlanders; 
 and thus there was almost constant war or discord between 
 them, though natives of the same country. 
 
 Some of the most powerful of the Highland chiefs set them- 
 selves up as independent sovereigns. Such were the famous 
 Lords of the Isles, called MacDonald, to whom the island, 
 called the Hebrides, lying on the north-west of Scotland, 
 might be said to belong in property. These petty sovereigns 
 made alliances with the English in their own name. They 
 took the part of Eobert the Bruce in the wars, and joined him 
 with their forces. We shall find, that after his time, they 
 gave great disturbance to Scotland. The Lords of Lorn, Mac- 
 Dougals by name, were also extremely powerful ; and you have 
 seen that they were able to give battle to Bruce, and to defeat 
 him, and place him in the greatest jeopardy. He revenged 
 himself afterwards by driving John of Lorn out of the country, 
 and by giving great part of his possessions to his own nephew, 
 Sir Colin Campbell, who became the first of the great family 
 of Argyll, which afterwards enjoyed such power in the 
 Highlands. 
 
 Upon the whole, you can easily understand that these 
 Highland clans, living among such high and inaccessible moun- 
 tains, and paying obedience to no one save their own chiefs, 
 should have been very instrumental in disturbing the tranquillity 
 of the kingdom of Scotland. They had many virtues, being a 
 kind, brave, and hospitable people, and remarkable for their
 
 120 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP, xn 
 
 fidelity to their chiefs ; but they were restless, revengeful, fond 
 of plunder, and delighting rather in war than in peace, in dis- 
 order than in repose. 
 
 The Border counties were in a state little more favourable 
 to a quiet or peaceful government. In some respects the in- 
 habitants of the counties of Scotland lying opposite to England, 
 greatly resembled the Highlanders, and particularly in their 
 being, like them, divided into clans, and having chiefs, whom 
 they obeyed in preference to the king, or the officers whom 
 he placed among them. How clanship came to prevail in the 
 Highlands and Borders, and not in the provinces which sepa- 
 rated them from each other, it is not easy to conjecture, but 
 the fact was so. The Borders are not, indeed, so mountainous 
 and inaccessible a country as the Highlands ; but they also are 
 full of hills, especially on the more western part of the frontier, 
 and were in early times covered with forests, and divided by 
 small rivers and morasses into dales and valleys, where the 
 different clans lived, making war sometimes on the English, 
 sometimes on each other, and sometimes on the more civilised 
 country which lay behind them. 
 
 But though the Borderers resembled the Highlanders in 
 their mode of government and habits of plundering, and, as 
 it may be truly added, in their disobedience to the general 
 government of Scotland, yet they differed in many particulars. 
 The Highlanders fought always on foot, the Borderers were 
 all horsemen. The Borderers spoke the same language with 
 the Lowlanders, wore the same sort of dress, and carried the 
 same arras. Being accustomed to fight against the English, 
 they were also much better disciplined than the Highlanders. 
 But in point of obedience to the Scottish government, they 
 were not much different from the clans of the north. 
 
 Military officers, called Wardens, were appointed along the 
 Borders, to keep these unruly people in order; but as these 
 wardens were generally themselves chiefs of clans, they did not 
 do much to mend the evil. Robert the Bruce committed great 
 part of the charge of the Borders to the good Lord James of 
 Douglas, who fulfilled his trust with great fidelity. But the 
 power which the family of Douglas thus acquired, proved 
 afterwards, in the hands of his successors, very dangerous to 
 the crown of Scotland. 
 
 Thus you see how much the poor country of Scotland was
 
 1306-29 DAVID IL 121 
 
 torn to pieces by the quarrels of the nobles, the weakness of 
 the laws, the disorders of the Highlands, and the restless 
 incursions of the Borderers. If Robert the Bruce had lived, 
 and preserved his health, he would have done much to bring 
 the country to a more orderly state. But Providence had 
 decreed that in the time of his son and successor, Scotland 
 was to fall back into a state almost as miserable as that from 
 which this great prince rescued it. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 David II. Regency and Death of Randolph Battle of Dupplin 
 Edward Baliol Battle of Halidon Hill 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Edward III. 
 France : Philip VI. 
 
 13291333 
 
 ROBERT BRUCE, the greatest king who ever wore the Scottish 
 crown, being dead, as you have been told, the kingdom 
 descended to his son David, who was called David the Second, 
 to distinguish him from the first king of that name, who 
 reigned about a hundred years before. This David the Second 
 was only four years old at his father's death, and although we 
 have seen children who thought themselves very wise at that 
 age, yet it is not usual to give them the management of 
 kingdoms. So Randolph, Earl of Murray, of whom you have 
 heard so much, became what is called Regent of the kingdom 
 of Scotland ; that is, he exercised the royal authority until the 
 King should be old enough to take the charge upon himself. 
 This wise provision had been made by Bruce, with consent 
 of the Parliament of Scotland, and was very acceptable to the 
 kingdom. 
 
 The Regent was very strict in administering justice. If a 
 husbandman had the plough-irons stolen from his plough when 
 he left them in the field, Randolph caused the sheriff of the 
 county to pay the value; because it was the duty of that 
 magistrate to protect property left in the open fields. A fellow 
 tried to cheat under colour of this law : he hid his own plough-
 
 122 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XIII 
 
 irons, and pretending that they had been stolen, claimed the 
 price from the sheriff, and was paid accordingly the estimated 
 value, which was two shillings. But the fraud being dis- 
 covered, the Regent caused the man to be hanged. 
 
 Upon one occasion, a criminal who had slain a priest, and 
 afterwards fled to Rome, and done penance there, was brought 
 before the Regent The culprit confessed the murder, but 
 pleaded that he had obtained the Pope's pardon. "The 
 Pope," said Randolph, " might pardon you for killing a priest, 
 but his remission cannot avail you for murdering a subject of 
 the King of Scotland ; " and accordingly he caused the culprit 
 to be executed. This was asserting a degree of independence 
 of the Pope's authority, which was very unusual among the 
 princes and governors of that time. 
 
 While the Regent was sitting in judgment at Wigtown, in 
 Galloway, a man stepped forward to complain, that at the very 
 time he was speaking, a company of his enemies were lying 
 in ambush in a neighbouring forest to put him to death. 
 Randolph sent a party of his attendants to seize the men, and 
 bring them before him. "Is it you," said he, "who lie in 
 wait to kill the King's liege subjects 1 To the gallows with 
 them instantly." 
 
 Randolph was to be praised for his justice, but not for his 
 severity. He appears to have taken a positive pleasure in 
 putting criminals to death, which marked the ferocity of the 
 times and the turn of his own disposition. Having sent his 
 coroner before him to Ellandonan Castle in the Highlands to 
 execute certain thieves and robbers, that officer caused their 
 heads to be hung round the walls of the castle, to the number 
 of fifty. When Randolph came down the lake in a barge, and 
 saw the castle adorned with these grim and bloody heads, he 
 said, " He loved better to look upon them than on any garland 
 of roses he had ever seen." 
 
 The efforts of the Regent to preserve the establishment of 
 justice and order were soon interrupted, and he was called 
 upon to take measures for the defence of the country; for 
 Robert Bruce was no sooner in his grave than the enemies of 
 his family began to plot the means of destroying the govern- 
 ment which he had established. The principal person con- 
 cerned in these machinations was Edward Baliol, the son of 
 that John Baliol, who was formerly created King of Scotland
 
 1329-32 
 
 DEATH OF RANDOLPH 123 
 
 by Edward L, and afterwards dethroned by him, and committed 
 to prison, when Edward desired to seize upon the country for 
 himself. After being long detained in prison, John Baliol was 
 at length suffered to go to France, where he died in obscurity. 
 But his son, Edward Baliol, seeing, as he thought, a favourable 
 opportunity, resolved to renew the claim of his father to the 
 Scottish throne. He came over to England with this purpose, 
 and although Edward III., then King of England, remembering 
 the late successes of the Scots, did not think it prudent to 
 enter into a war with them, yet Baliol found a large party of 
 powerful English barons well .disposed to aid his enterprise. 
 Their cause of resentment was as follows : 
 
 When Scotland was freed from the dominion of England, 
 all the Englishmen to whom Edward the First, or his succes- 
 sors, had given lands within that kingdom, were of course de- 
 prived of them. But there was another class of English 
 proprietors in Scotland, who claimed estates to which they 
 succeeded, not by the grant of the English prince, but by 
 inheritance from Scottish families, to whom they were related, 
 and their pretensions were admitted by Robert Bruce himself, 
 at the treaty of peace made at Northampton, in 1328, in which 
 it was agreed that these English lords should receive back their 
 Scottish inheritances. Notwithstanding this agreement, Bruce, 
 who did not desire to see Englishmen enjoy land in Scotland, 
 under what pretext soever, refused, or delayed at least, to 
 fulfil this part of the treaty. Hence, upon the death of that 
 monarch, the disinherited lords resolved to levy forces, and 
 unite themselves with Edward Baliol, to recover their estates, 
 and determined to invade Scotland for that purpose. But 
 their united forces did not amount to more than four hundred 
 men-at-arms, and about four thousand archers and soldiers of 
 every description. This was a small army with which to in- 
 vade a nation which had defended itself so well against the 
 whole English forces ; but Scotland was justly supposed to be 
 much weakened by the death of her valiant king. 
 
 A great misfortune befell the country, in the unexpected 
 death of the Regent Randolph, whose experience and valour 
 might have done so much for the protection of Scotland. He 
 had assembled an army, and was busied with preparations for 
 defence against the enterprise of Baliol and the disinherited 
 lords, when, wasted by a painful and consuming disorder, he
 
 124 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XIII 
 
 died at Musselburgh, July 1332. The regret of the Scottish 
 nation for the Regent's death was so great, that it has occa- 
 sioned their historians to allege that he was poisoned by the 
 English ; but for this there seems no foundation. 
 
 Donald, Earl of Mar, nephew to Robert Bruce, was appointed 
 by the Scottish Parliament to be Regent in the room of the 
 Earl of Murray ; but he was without experience as a soldier, 
 and of far inferior talents as a man. 
 
 Meantime, the King of England, still affecting to maintain 
 peace with Scotland, prohibited the disinherited lords from in- 
 vading that country from the English frontier. But he did 
 not object to their equipping a small fleet in an obscure Eng- 
 lish seaport, for the purpose of accomplishing the same object 
 by sea. They landed in Fife, with Baliol at their 
 6t i332. K ' head and defeated the Earl of Fife, who marched 
 hastily to oppose them. They then advanced north- 
 ward towards Dupplin, near which the Earl of Mar lay en- 
 camped with a large army, whilst another, under the Earl 
 of March, was advancing from the southern counties of Scot- 
 land to attack the disinherited lords in the flank and in the 
 rear. 
 
 It seemed as if that small handful of men must have been 
 inevitably destroyed by the numbers collected to oppose them, 
 but Edward Baliol took the bold resolution of attacking the 
 Regent's army by night, and in their camp. With this pur- 
 pose he crossed the Earn, which river divided the two hostile 
 armies. The Earl of Mar had neither placed sentries, nor ob- 
 served any other of the usual precautions against surprise, and 
 the English came upon his army while the men were asleep 
 and totally unprepared. They made a great slaughter amongst 
 the Scots, whose numbers only served to increase the confusion. 
 The Regent was himself slain, with the Earls of Carrick, of 
 Murray, of Menteith, and many other men of eminence. Many 
 thousands of the Scots were slain with the sword, smothered 
 in the fight, or drowned in the river. The English were them- 
 selves surprised at gaining, with such inferior numbers, so great 
 and decided a victory. 
 
 I said that the Earl of March was advancing with the south- 
 land forces to assist the Regent. But upon learning Mar's 
 defeat and death, March acted with so little activity or spirit, 
 that he was not unjustly suspected of being favourably inclined
 
 1332 EDWARD BALIOL 125 
 
 to Baliol's cause. That victorious general now assumed the 
 crown of Scotland, which was placed upon his head 
 at Scone ; a great part of Scotland surrendered to his 
 authority, and it seemed as if the fatal battle of 
 Dupplin, fought 12th August 1332, had destroyed all the 
 advantages which had been gained by that of Bannockburn. 
 
 Edward Baliol made an unworthy use of his success. He 
 hastened again to acknowledge the King of England as his 
 liege lord and superior, although every claim to such supremacy 
 had been renounced, and the independence of Scotland explicitly 
 acknowledged by the treaty of Northampton. He also sur- 
 rendered to the King of England the strong town and castle of 
 Berwick, and engaged to become his follower in all his wars at 
 his own charges. Edward III. engaged on his part to maintain 
 Baliol in possession of the crown of Scotland. Thus was the 
 kingdom reduced pretty much to the same state of depend- 
 ence and subjection to England, as when the grandfather of 
 Edward placed the father of Baliol on the throne, in the year 
 1292, about forty years before. 
 
 But the success of Baliol was rather apparent than real. 
 The Scottish patriots were in possession of many of the strong- 
 holds of the country, and the person of the young King David 
 was secured in Dumbarton Castle, one of the strongest fortresses 
 in Scotland, or perhaps in the world. 
 
 At no period of her history was Scotland devoid of brave 
 men, able and willing to defend her rights. When the scandal- 
 ous treaty, by which Baliol had surrendered the independence 
 of his country to Edward, came to be known in Scotland, the 
 successors of Bruce's companions were naturally among the first 
 to assert the cause of freedom. John Randolph, second son of 
 the Regent, had formed a secret union with Archibald Douglas, 
 a younger brother of the Good Lord James, and they proceeded 
 to imitate the actions of their relatives. They suddenly as- 
 sembled a considerable force, and attacking Baliol, who was 
 feasting near Annan, they cut his guards in pieces, killed his 
 brother, and chased him out of Scotland in such haste, that he 
 escaped on horseback without time to clothe himself, or even 
 to saddle his horse. 
 
 Archibald Douglas, who afterwards became Earl of Douglas, 
 was a brave manlike his brother, but not so good a general, uor 
 BO fortunate in his undertakings.
 
 126 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. Xlll 
 
 There was another Douglas, called Sir William, a natural 
 BOD of the Good Lord James, who made a great figure at this 
 period. Although illegitimate by birth, he had acquired a 
 large fortune by marrying the heiress of the Grahames of 
 Dalkeith, and possessed the strong castle of that name, with 
 the still more important one called the Hermitage, a large and 
 massive fortress situated in the wild country of Liddesdale, 
 within three or four miles of the English Border. This Sir 
 William Douglas, called usually the Knight of Liddesdale, was 
 a very brave man and a valiant soldier, but he was fierce, cruel, 
 and treacherous ; so that he did not keep up the reputation of 
 his father the Good Lord James, as a man of loyalty and 
 honour, although he resembled him in military talents. 
 
 Besides these champions, all of whom declared against Baliol, 
 there was Sir Andrew Murray of Bothwell, who had married 
 Christian, sister of Robert Bruce, and aunt of the young King 
 David. He had so high a reputation, that the Scottish Parlia- 
 ment appointed him Regent in room of the Earl of Mar, slain 
 at Dupplin. 
 
 Edward III. of England now formally declared war against 
 Scotland, proposing to support the cause of Baliol, to take 
 possession of Berwick, which that pretended king had yielded 
 up to him, and to chastise the Scots for what he called their 
 rebellion. He placed himself at the head of a great army, and 
 marched towards the frontier. 
 
 In the meantime, the war had begun in a manner most un- 
 favourable for Scotland. Sir Andrew Murray, and the Knight 
 of Liddesdale, were both made prisoners in separate skirmishes 
 with the English, and their loss at the time was of the worst 
 consequence to Scotland. 
 
 Archibald Douglas, the brother, as I have just said, of the 
 Good Lord James, was hastily appointed Regent in the room 
 of Sir Andrew Murray, and advanced with a large army to 
 relieve the town of Berwick, then closely besieged by Edward 
 III. with all his host. The garrison made a determined 
 defence, and the Regent endeavoured to relieve them by giving 
 battle to the English, in which he showed more courage than 
 military conduct 
 
 The Scottish army were drawn up on the side of an emi- 
 nence called Halidon Hill, within two miles of Berwick. King 
 Edward moved with hia whole host to attack them. The
 
 1333 
 
 HALIDON HILL 127 
 
 battle, like that of Falkirk and many others, was decided by 
 that formidable force, the archers of England. They were 
 posted in a marshy ground, from which they discharged their 
 arrows in the most tremendous and irresistible volleys against 
 the Scots, who, drawn up on the slope of the hill, were fully 
 exposed to this destructive discharge, without having the means 
 of answering it. 
 
 I have told you before that these English archers were the 
 best ever known in war. They were accustomed to the use of 
 the bow from the time they were children of seven years old, 
 when they were made to practice with a little bow suited to 
 their size and strength, which was every year exchanged for 
 one larger and stronger, till they were able to draw that of a 
 full-grown man. Besides being thus familiarised with the 
 weapon, the archers of England were taught to draw the bow- 
 string to their right ear, while other European nations only 
 drew it to their breast. If you try the difference of the posture, 
 you will find that a much longer arrow can be drawn to the ear 
 than to the breast, because the right hand has more room. 
 
 While the Scots suffered under these practised and skilful 
 archers, whose arrows fell like hail amongst them, throwing 
 their ranks into disorder, and piercing the finest armour as if 
 it had been pasteboard, they made desperate attempts to descend 
 the hill, and come to close combat. 1 The Earl of Ross ad- 
 vanced to the charge, and had he been seconded by a sufficient 
 body of the Scottish cavalry, he might have changed the fate 
 of the day ; but as this was not the case, the Earls of Ross, 
 Sutherland, and Menteith, were overpowered and slain, while 
 their followers were dispersed by the English cavalry, who 
 advanced to protect the archers. The defeat of the 
 Scots was then complete. A number of their best 19 ^ 3 3 Uly 
 and bravest nobility were slain, and amongst them 
 Archibald Douglas, the Regent; very many were made prisoners. 
 Berwick surrendered in consequence of the defeat, and Scotland 
 seemed again to be completely conquered by the English. 
 
 1 " 'Che fatal hail-shower, 
 
 The storm of England's wrath sure, swift, resistless, 
 Which no mail-coat can brook. Brave English hearts, 
 How close they shoot together ! as one eye 
 Had aimed five thousand shafts as if one hand 
 Had loosed five thousand bow-strings ! " 
 
 See " Unlidon Hill," SIR WALTER SCOTT'S Poetical Worki
 
 128 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XIV 
 
 Edward once more overran the kingdom, seized and garri- 
 soned castles, extorted from Edward Baliol, the nominal king, 
 the complete cession of great part of the southern districts, 
 named governors of the castles and sheriffs of the counties, 
 and exercised complete authority, as over a conquered country, 
 Baliol, on his part, assumed once more the rule of the northern 
 and western part of Scotland, which he was permitted to re- 
 tain under the vassalage of the English monarch. It was the 
 opinion of most people that the Scottish wars were ended, and 
 that there no longer remained a man of that nation who had 
 influence to raise an army, or skill to conduct one. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Siege of the castle of Locldeven Battle of Kilblene Siege of Duribar 
 Castle Sir Andrew Murray Tournaments 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Edward III. France: 
 Philip VI. 
 
 13331338 
 
 THE English, a more powerful and richer nation, better able 
 to furnish forth and maintain large armies, often gained great 
 victories over the Scots ; but, in return, the Scots had a deter- 
 mined love of independence, and hatred of foreign tyranny, 
 which induced them always to maintain their resistance under 
 the most unfavourable circumstances, and to repair, by slow, 
 stubborn, and continued exertions, the losses which they sus- 
 tained. 
 
 Throughout the whole country of Scotland only four castles 
 and a small tower acknowledged the sovereignty of David 
 Bruce after the battle of Halidou ; and it ia wonderful to see 
 how, by their efforts, the patriots soon afterwards changed for 
 the better that unfavourable and seemingly desperate state of 
 things. In the several skirmishes and battles which were 
 fought all over the kingdom, the Scots, knowing the country, 
 and having the goodwill of the inhabitants, were generally 
 successful, as also in surprising castles and forts, cutting off 
 convoys of provisions which were going to the English, and
 
 1333-5 LOCHLEVEN CASTLE 129 
 
 destroying scattered parties of the enemy ; so that, by a long 
 and incessant course of fighting, the patriots gradually regained 
 what they lost in great battles. I will tell you one or two 
 of the incidents which befell during this bloody war. 
 
 Lochleven Castle, situated on an island upon a large lake, 
 was one of the four which held out in name of David the Bruce, 
 and would not submit to Edward BalioL The governor was 
 a loyal Scotsman, called Alan Vipont, assisted by Jaques or 
 James Lamby. The castle was besieged by Sir John Stirling, 
 a follower of John Baliol, with an army of English. As the 
 besiegers dared not approach the island with boats, Stirling fell 
 on a singular device to oblige the garrison to surrender. There 
 is a small river, called the Leven, which runs out of the eastern 
 extremity of the lake or loch. Across this stream the besiegers 
 reared a very strong and lofty mound or barrier, so as to pre- 
 vent the waters of the Leven from leaving the lake. They 
 expected that the waters of the lake would rise in consequence 
 of being thus confined, and that they would overflow the island, 
 and oblige Vipont to surrender. But Vipont, sending out at 
 dead of night a small boat with four men, they made a breach 
 in the mound ; and the whole body of water, breaking forth 
 with incredible fury, swept away the tents, baggage, and troops 
 of the besiegers, and nearly destroyed their army. 
 The remains of the English mound are shown to 
 this day, though some doubt has been expressed as 
 to the truth of the incident. It is certain the English were 
 obliged to raise the siege with loss. 
 
 While these wars were proceeding with increased fury, the 
 Knight of Liddesdale and Sir Andrew Murray of Bothwell 
 returned to Scotland, having been freed from their imprison- 
 ment by paying a large ransom ; the Earl of March also em- 
 braced the party of David Bruce. An equally brave champion 
 was Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalwolsy, who, placing himself 
 at the head of a gallant troop of young Scotsmen, chose for 
 his residence the large caves which are still to be seen in the 
 glen of Roslin, from which he used to sally forth, and fight 
 with Englishmen and their adherents. From this place of 
 refuge he sometimes made excursions as far as Northumberland, 
 and drove spoil from that country. No young Scottish soldier 
 was thought entitled to make pretension to any renown in 
 arms, unless he had served in Ramsay's band. 
 
 9
 
 130 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XIV 
 
 A considerable battle was fought in the north of Scotland, 
 which turned to the advantage of the young King. Kildrummie 
 Castle was one of the four which held out for David Bruce. 
 It was defended by King David's aunt, a venerable matron, 
 Christian Bruce, the wife of Sir Andrew Murray, and the sister 
 of the brave King Robert ; for in those warlike days women 
 commanded castles, and sometimes fought in battle. This 
 castle, which was one of the last places of refuge for the patriots, 
 was besieged by David Hastings, the Earl of Athole, one of 
 the disinherited lords, who, having changed sides more than 
 once during the war, had at length turned entirely to the 
 English party. Sir Andrew Murray of Bothwell, who had 
 resumed his office of Regent, resolved to assemble the strongest 
 force which the patriots could muster, and calling together the 
 Knight of Liddesdale, Ramsay, and the Earl of March, he 
 moved against the Earl of Athole, to compel him to raise the 
 siege of Kildrummie, and relieve its heroic defender. All these 
 great nobles were unable to raise above one thousand men, 
 while Athole had three times that number under his command. 
 
 But as the Scots approached the territory of Kildrummie, 
 they were joined by one John Craig. This gentleman belonged 
 to the royalists of Scotland, but having been made prisoner by 
 the Earl of Athole, he had agreed to pay a large ransom, and 
 the morrow was the time appointed for producing the money. 
 He was, therefore, anxious to accomplish the defeat or death 
 of Athole before the money was paid to him, and thus to save 
 his ransom. With this purpose he conducted the Scotsmen 
 through the forest of Braemar, where they were joined by the 
 natives of that territory, and thus came suddenly on the Earl 
 of Athole, who lay encamped in the forest. Athole started up 
 in surprise when he saw his enemies appear so unexpectedly ; 
 but he was a stout-hearted man, though fickle in his political 
 attachments. He looked at a great rock which lay beside him, 
 and swore an oath that he would not fly that day until that 
 rock should show him the example. A small brook divided 
 the two parties. The Knight of Liddesdale, who led the van 
 of the Scots, advanced a little way down the bank on his side, 
 then taking his spear by the middle, and keeping his own 
 men back with it, he bade them halt, which occasioned some 
 murmurs. The Earl of Athole, seeing this pause, exclaimed, 
 " These men are half discomfited ; " and rushed to charge them,
 
 1335-9 BATTLE OF KILBLENE 131 
 
 followed by his men in some disorder. When they had passed 
 the brook, and were ascending the bank on the other side, 
 " Now is our time," said the Knight of Liddesdale, and charged 
 down hill with levelled lances, bearing Athole's followers back- 
 wards into the ford. The earl himself, disdaining quarter, was 
 slain under a great oak-tree. This was the battle of Kilblene, 
 fought on St. Andrew's Day, 1335. 
 
 Among the warlike exploits of this period, we must not 
 forget the defence of the castle of Dunbar by the celebrated 
 Countess of March. Her lord, as we have seen, had embraced 
 the side of David Bruce, and had taken the field with the 
 Regent. The countess, who from her complexion was termed 
 Black Agnes, by which name she is still familiarly remembered, 
 was a high-spirited and courageous woman, the daughter of 
 that Thomas Randolph, Earl of Murray, whom I have so often 
 mentioned, and the heiress of his valour and patriotism. The 
 castle of Dunbar itself was very strong, being built upon a chain 
 of rocks stretching into the sea, and having only one passage to 
 the mainland, which was well fortified. It was besieged by Mon- 
 tague, Earl of Salisbury, who employed to destroy its walls great 
 military engines, constructed to throw huge stones, with which 
 machines fortifications were attacked before the use of cannon. 
 
 Black Agnes set all his attempts at defiance, and showed 
 herself with her maids on the walls of the castle, wiping the 
 places where the huge stones fell with a clean towel, as if they 
 could do no ill to her castle, save raising a little dust, which a 
 napkin could wipe away. 
 
 The Earl of Salisbury then commanded his engineers to 
 bring forward to the assault an engine of another kind, being 
 a sort of wooden shed, or house, rolled forward on wheels, 
 with a roof of peculiar strength, which, from resembling the 
 ridge of a hog's back, occasioned the machine to be called a 
 sow. This, according to the old mode of warfare, was thrust 
 close up to the walls of a besieged castle or city, and served to 
 protect from the arrows and stones of the besieged a party of 
 soldiers placed within the sow, who, being thus defended, were 
 in the meanwhile employed in undermining the wall, or 
 breaking an entrance through it with pickaxes and mining 
 tools. When the Countess of March saw this engine advanced 
 to the walls of the castle, she called out to the Earl of Salis- 
 bury in derision and making a kind of rhyme,
 
 132 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XIV 
 
 " Beware, Montagow, 
 For farrow shall thy sow." 
 
 At the same time she made a signal, and a huge fragment of 
 rock, which hung prepared for the purpose, was dropped down 
 from the wall upon the sow, whose roof was thus dashed to 
 pieces. As the English soldiers, who had been within it, were 
 running as fast as they could to get out of the way of the 
 arrows and stones which were discharged on them from the 
 wall, Black Agnes called out, "Behold the litter of English 
 pigs !" 
 
 The Earl of Salisbury could jest also on such serious occa- 
 sions. One day he rode near the walls with a knight dressed 
 in armour of proof, having three folds of mail over an acton, 
 or leathern jacket ; notwithstanding which, one William Spens 
 shot an arrow from the battlements of the castle with such 
 force, that it penetrated all these defences, and reached the 
 heart of the wearer. " That is one of my lady's love-tokens," 
 said the earl, as he saw the knight fall dead from his horse. 
 " Black Agnes's love-shafts pierce to the heart." 
 
 Upon another occasion the Countess of March had wellnigh 
 made the Earl of Salisbury her prisoner. She caused one of 
 her people enter into treaty with the besiegers, pretending to 
 betray the castle. Trusting to this agreement, the earl came 
 at midnight before the gate, which he found open, and the 
 portcullis drawn up. As Salisbury was about to enter, one 
 John Copland, a squire of Northumberland, pressed on before 
 him, and as soon as he passed the threshold, the portcullis was 
 dropped, and thus the Scots missed their principal prey, and 
 made prisoner only a person of inferior condition. 
 
 At length the castle of Dunbar was relieved by Alexander 
 Ramsay of Dalwolsy, who brought the countess supplies by 
 Bea both of men and provisions. The Earl of Salisbury, 
 learning this, despaired of success, and raised the siege, which 
 bad lasted nineteen weeks. The minstrels made songs in 
 praise of the perseverance and courage of Black Agnes. The 
 following lines are nearly the sense of what is preserved : 
 
 41 She kept a stir in tower and trench, 
 That brawling boisterous Scottish wench ; 
 Came I early, came I late, 
 I found Agnes at the gate."
 
 1335-9 SIR ANDREW MURRAY 133 
 
 The brave Sir Andrew Murray of Bothwell, the Regent of 
 Scotland, died in 1338, while the war was raging on all sides. 
 He was a good patriot, and a great loss to his country, to which 
 he had rendered the highest services. There is a story told of 
 him, which shows how composed he could be in circumstances 
 of great danger. He was in the Highlands with a small body 
 of followers, when the King of England came upon him with 
 an army of twenty thousand. The Regent learned the news, 
 but, being then about to hear mass, did not permit his devo- 
 tions to be interrupted. When mass was ended, the people 
 around him pressed him to order a retreat; "There is no 
 haste," said Murray composedly. At length his horse was 
 brought out, he was about to mount, and all expected that the 
 retreat was to commence. But the Regent observed that a 
 strap of his armour had given way, and this interposed new 
 delays. He sent for a particular coffer, out of which he took 
 a piece of skin, and cut and formed with his own hand, and 
 with much deliberation, the strap which he wanted. By this 
 time the English were drawing very near, and as they were so 
 many in number, some of the Scottish knights afterwards told 
 the historian who relates the incident, that no space of time 
 ever seemed so long to them as that which Sir Andrew em- 
 ployed in cutting that thong of leather. Now, if this had been 
 done in a mere vaunting or bragging manner, it would have 
 been the behaviour of a vainglorious fool. But Sir Andrew 
 Murray had already fixed upon the mode of retiring, and he 
 knew that every symptom of coolness and deliberation which 
 he might show would render his men steady and composed in 
 their turn, from beholding the confidence of their leader. He 
 at length gave the word, and putting himself at the head of his 
 followers, made a most masterly retreat, during which the 
 English, notwithstanding their numbers, were unable to obtain 
 any advantage over him, so well did the Regent avail himself 
 of the nature of the ground. 
 
 You may well imagine, my dear child, that during those long 
 and terrible wars which were waged, when castles were defended 
 and taken, prisoners made, many battles fought, and numbers 
 of men wounded and slain, the state of the country of Scotland 
 was most miserable. There was no finding refuge or protection 
 in the law, at a time when everything was decided by the 
 strongest arm and the longest sword. There was no use in
 
 134 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XIV 
 
 raising crops, when the man who sowed them was not, in all 
 probability, permitted to reap the grain. There was little 
 religious devotion where so much violence prevailed ; and the 
 hearts of the people became so much inclined to acts of blood 
 and fury that all laws of humanity and charity were trans- 
 gressed without scruple. People were found starved to death 
 in the woods with their families, while the country was so 
 depopulated and void of cultivation that the wild-deer came 
 out of the remote forests, and approached near to cities and 
 the dwellings of men. Whole families were reduced to eat 
 grass, and others, it is said, found a more horrible aliment in 
 the flesh of their fellow -creatures. One wretch used to set 
 traps for human beings as if for wild beasts, and subsisted on 
 their flesh. This cannibal was called Christian of the Cleek, 
 from the cleek or hook which he used in his horrid traps. 
 
 In the middle of all these horrors, the English and Scottish 
 knights and nobles, when there was any truce between the 
 countries, supplied the place of the wars in which they were 
 commonly engaged, with tournaments and games of chivalry. 
 These were meetings not for the express purpose of fighting, 
 but for that of trying which was the best man-at-arms. But 
 instead of wrestling, leaping, or running races on foot or horse, 
 the fashion then was that the gentlemen tilted together, that 
 is, rode against each other in armour with their long lances, 
 and tried which could bear the other out of the saddle, and 
 throw him to the ground. Sometimes they fought on foot 
 with swords and axes ; and although all was meant in courtesy 
 and fair play, yet lives were often lost in this idle manner as 
 much as if the contest had been carried on with the purpose of 
 armed battle and deadly hatred. In later days they fought 
 with swords purposely blunted on the edge, and with lances 
 which had no steel point ; but in the times we speak of at 
 present, they used in tilts and tournaments the same weapons 
 which they employed in war. 
 
 A very noted entertainment of this kind was given to both 
 Scottish and English champions by Henry of Lancaster, then 
 called Earl of Derby, and afterwards King Henry IV. of Eng- 
 land. He invited the Knight of Liddlesdale, the good Sir 
 Alexander Ramsay, and about twenty other distinguished 
 Scottish knights, to a tilting match, which was to take place 
 near Berwick. After receiving and entertaining his Scottish
 
 1335-9 TOURNAMENTS 135 
 
 guests nobly, the Earl of Derby began to inquire of Ramsay in 
 what manner of armour the knights should tilt together. 
 
 " With shields of plate," said Ramsay, " such as men use in 
 tournaments." 
 
 This may be supposed a peculiarly weighty and strong kind 
 of armour, intended merely for this species of encounter. 
 
 " Nay," said the Earl of Derby, " we shall gain little praise 
 if we tilt in such safety ; let us rather use the lighter armour 
 which we wear in battle." 
 
 " Content are we," answered Sir Alexander Ramsay, 
 "to fight in our silk doublets, if such be your lordship's 
 pleasure." 
 
 The Knight of Liddesdale was wounded on the wrist by the 
 splinter of a spear, and was obliged to desist from the exercise. 
 A Scottish knight, called Sir Patrick Grahame, tilted with a 
 warlike English baron named Talbot, whose life was saved by 
 his wearing two breastplates. The Scottish lance pierced 
 through both, and sunk an inch into the breast. Had he been 
 only armed as according to agreement, Talbot had been a dead 
 man. Another English knight challenged the Grahame at 
 supper-time to run three courses with him the next day. 
 
 " Dost thou ask to tilt with me ? " said the Grahame ; " rise 
 early in the morning, confess your sins, and make your peace 
 with God, for you shall sup in paradise." Accordingly, on the 
 ensuing morning, Grahame ran him through the body with his 
 lance, and he died on the spot. Another English knight was 
 also slain, and one of the Scots mortally wounded. William 
 Ramsay was borne through the helmet with a lance, the splinter 
 of the broken spear remaining in his skull, and nailing his 
 helmet to his head. As he was expected to die on the spot, a 
 priest was sent for, who heard him confess his sins without the 
 helmet being removed. 
 
 " Ah, it is a goodly sight," quoth the good Earl of Derby, 
 much edified by this spectacle, " to see a knight make his 
 shrift " (that is, confession of his sins) " in his helmet. God 
 send me such an ending ! " 
 
 But when the shrift was over, Sir Alexander Ramsay, to 
 whom the wounded knight was brother, or kinsman, made him 
 lie down at full length, and, with surgery as rough as their 
 pastime, held his friend's head down with his foot, while, by 
 main strength, he pulled the fragment of the spear out of the
 
 136 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XV 
 
 helmet, and out of the wound. Then William Ramsay started 
 up, and said, " That he should do well enough." 
 
 " Lo ! what stout hearts men may bear ! " said the Earl of 
 Derby, as much admiring the surgical treatment as he had 
 done the religious. Whether the patient lived or died, does 
 not appear. 
 
 In fixing the prizes, it was settled that the English knights 
 should decide which of the Scots had done best, and the Scots 
 should, in like manner, judge the valour of the English. 
 Much equity was shown in the decision on both sides, and the 
 Earl of Derby was munificent in distribution of gifts and 
 prizes. This may serve to show you the amusements of this 
 stirring period, of which war and danger were the sport as well 
 as the serious occupation. 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 Departure of Baliol Return of David II. Death of Sir Alexander 
 Ramsay Death of the Knight of Liddesdale Battle of Neville's 
 Cross Death of King David 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England; Edward III. 
 France: Philip VI., John II., Charles V. 
 
 13391370 
 
 NOTWITHSTANDING the valiant defence maintained by the 
 Scots, their country was reduced to a most disastrous state, by 
 the continued wars of Edward III., who was a wise and war- 
 like king as ever lived. Could he have turned against Scot 
 land the whole power of his kingdom, he might probably have 
 effected the complete conquest, which had been so long 
 attempted in vain. But while the wars in Scotland were at 
 the hottest, Edward became also engaged in hostilities with 
 France, having laid claim to the crown of that kingdom. Thus 
 Edward was obliged to slacken his efforts in Scotland, and the 
 patriots began to gain ground decisively in the dreadful contest 
 which was so obstinately maintained on both sides. 
 
 The Scots sent an embassy to obtain money and assistance 
 from the French ; and they received supplies of both, which
 
 '339-42 RETURN OF DAVID II. 137 
 
 enabled them to recover their castles and towns from the 
 English. 
 
 Edinburgh Castle was taken from the invaders by a strata- 
 gem. The Knight of Liddesdale, with two hundred chosen 
 men, embarked at Dundee, in a merchant vessel commanded 
 by one William Curry. The shipmaster, on their arrival at 
 Leith, went with a party of his sailors to the castle, carrying 
 barrels of wine and hampers of provisions, which he pretended 
 it was his desire to sell to the English governor and his garri- 
 son. But getting entrance at the gate under this pretext, 
 they raised the war-shout of Douglas, and the Knight of Liddes- 
 dale rushed in with his soldiers, and secured the castle. Perth, 
 and other important places, were also retaken by the Scots, 
 and Edward Baliol retired out of the country, in despair of mak- 
 ing good his pretensions to the crown. 
 
 The nobles of Scotland, finding the affairs of the kingdom 
 more prosperous, now came to the resolution of bringing back 
 from France, where he had resided for safety, their young 
 king, David II., and his consort, Queen Joanna. They arrived 
 in 1341. 
 
 David II. was still a youth, neither did he possess at any 
 period of life the wisdom and talents of his father, the great 
 King Robert. The nobles of Scotland had become each a 
 petty prince on his own estates ; they made war on each other 
 as they had done upon the English, and the poor king possessed 
 no power of restraining them. A most melancholy instance of 
 this discord took place, shortly after David's return from 
 France. 
 
 I have told you how Sir Alexander Ramsay and the Knight 
 of Liddesdale assisted each other in fighting against the English. 
 They were great friends and companions-in-arms. But Ramsay, 
 having taken by storm the strong castle of Roxburgh, the King 
 bestowed on him the office of sheriff of that county, which was 
 before enjoyed by the Knight of Liddesdale. As this was 
 placing another person in his- room, the Knight of Liddesdale 
 altogether forgot his old friendship for Ramsay, and resolved to 
 put him to death. He came suddenly upon him with a strong 
 party of men, while he was administering justice at Hawick. 
 Ramsay having no suspicion of injury from Ihe hand of his old 
 comrade, and having few men with him, was easily overpowered, 
 and being wounded, was hurried away to the lonely castle of
 
 138 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XV 
 
 the Hermitage, which stands in the middle of the morasses of 
 Liddesdale. Here he was thrown into a dungeon, where he 
 had no other sustenance than some grain which fell down from 
 a granary above ; and after lingering seventeen days in that 
 dreadful condition, the brave Sir Alexander Ramsay died. 
 This was in 1342. Nearly four hundred and fifty years after- 
 wards, that is, about forty years ago, a mason, digging amongst 
 the ruins of Hermitage Castle, 1 broke into a dungeon, where 
 lay a quantity of chaff, some human bones, and a bridle bit, 
 which were supposed to mark the vault as the place of Ramsay's 
 death. The bridle bit was given to grandpapa, who presented 
 it to the present gallant Earl of Dalhousie, a brave soldier, like 
 his ancestor Sir Alexander Ramsay, from whom he is lineally 
 descended. 
 
 The King was much displeased at the commission of so great 
 a crime, on the person of so faithful a subject. He made some 
 attempts to avenge the murder, but the Knight of Liddesdale 
 was too powerful to be punished, and the King was obliged to 
 receive him again into friendship and confidence. But God in 
 his own good time revenged this cruel deed. About five years 
 after the crime was committed, the Knight of Liddesdale was 
 taken prisoner by the English at the battle of Neville's Cross, 
 near Durham, and is suspected of having obtained his liberty 
 by entering into a treacherous league with the English monarch. 
 He had no time to carry his treason, however, into effect ; for, 
 shortly after his liberation, he was slain whilst hunt- 
 ing in Ettrick Forest, by his near relation and godson, 
 William, Lord Douglas. The place where he fell was 
 called from his name, William-hope. It is a pity that the 
 Knight of Liddesdale committed that great crime of murdering 
 Ramsay, and entered into the treasonable treaty with the King 
 of England. In other respects, he was ranked so high in 
 
 1 "Some years ago a mason, employed in building a dike in the neigh- 
 bourhood, had the curiosity to penetrate into a vault in the east end of the 
 castle. Having made an opening, ho descended by a ladder ; and in a 
 vault about eight feet square he found several human bones, with a saddle, 
 a bridle, and sword ; he brought out the bridle and sword. The bit WM 
 of an uncommon size ; the curb of it is in the possession of Walter Scott, 
 Esq., advocate. In the dungeon he found a great quantity of the husks 
 of oats. Report says, the granary of the castle was immediately above 
 this vault, and that Sir Alexander Ramsay subsisted for some time on 
 what fell down into the vault." Statistical Account of Scotland.
 
 1342-6 CAPTIVITY OF DAVED II. 139 
 
 public esteem, that he was called the Flower of Chivalry ; and 
 an old writer has said of him, " He was terrible in arms, modest 
 and gentle in peace, the scourge of England, and the buckler 
 and wall of Scotland ; one whom good success never made pre- 
 sumptuous, and whom evil fortune never discouraged." 
 
 We return to the state of Scotland at the time when the 
 young King was restored. Battles and skirmishes were fought 
 on all sides ; but the Scots having gained back the whole of 
 their own country, the war became less inveterate; and al- 
 though no settled peace took place, yet truces, to endure for a 
 certain number of months and years, were agreed upon from 
 time to time ; and the English historians allege that the Scot- 
 tish nation were always ready to break them when a tempting 
 opportunity occurred. 
 
 Such a truce was in existence about 1346, when, Edward 
 the Third being absent in France, and in the act of besieging 
 Calais, David was induced, by the pressing and urgent counsels 
 of the French King, to renew the war, and profit by the King's 
 absence from England. The young King of Scotland raised, 
 accordingly, a large army, and entering England on the west 
 frontier, he marched eastward towards Durham, harassing and 
 wasting the country with great severity ; the Scots boasting 
 that, now the King and his nobles were absent, there were none 
 in England to oppose them, save priests and base mechanics. 
 
 But they were greatly deceived. The lords of the northern 
 counties of England, together with the Archbishop of York, 
 assembled a gallant army. They defeated the vanguard of 
 the Scots, and came upon the main body by surprise. The 
 English army, in which there were many ecclesiastics, bore, 
 as their standard, a crucifix, displayed amid the banners of the 
 nobility. The Scots had taken post among some enclosures, 
 which greatly embarrassed their movements, and their ranks 
 remaining stationary were, as on former occasions, destroyed 
 by the English arrows. Here Sir John Grahame offered his 
 services to disperse the bowmen, if he were entrusted with a 
 body of cavalry. But although this was the movement which 
 decided the battle of Bannockburn, Grahame could not obtain 
 the means of attempting it. In the meantime the Scottish 
 army fell fast into disorder. The King himself fought bravely 
 in the midst of his nobles and was twice wounded with arrows. 
 At length he was captured by John Copland, a Northumberland
 
 1 40 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP, XV 
 
 gentleman ; the same who was made prisoner at Dunbar. He 
 did not secure his royal captive without resistance ; for in the 
 struggle the King dashed out two of Copland's teeth with his 
 dagger. The left wing of the Scottish army continued fighting 
 long after the rest were routed, and at length made a safe 
 retreat. It was commanded by the Steward of Scotland and 
 the Earl of March. Very many of the Scottish nobility were 
 slain ; very many made prisoners. The King himself was led 
 iu triumph through the streets of London, and committed to 
 the Tower a close prisoner. This battle was fought at Neville's 
 Cross, near Durham, on 17th October 1346. 
 
 Thus was another great victory gained by the English over 
 the Scots. It was followed by further advantages, which gave 
 the victors for a time possession of the country from the 
 Scottish Border as far as the verge of Lothian. But the Scots, 
 as usual, were no sooner compelled to momentary submission, 
 than they began to consider the means of shaking off the 
 yoke. 
 
 William Douglas, son to that Douglas who was killed at 
 Halidon Hill, near Berwick, now displayed his share of that 
 courage and conduct which seemed the birthright of that 
 extraordinary family. He recovered his own territories of 
 Douglasdale, drove the English out of Ettrick Forest, and 
 assisted the inhabitants of Teviotdale in regaining their inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 On this occasion, indeed, the invasion of the English was 
 not attended with the same extensively bad effects as on former 
 victories obtained by them. The title of Baliol was not again 
 set up, and that nominal sovereign surrendered to the English 
 monarch all his right and interest in the kingdom of Scotland, 
 in testimony of which he presented him a handful of earth 
 belonging to the country, and a crown of gold. Edward, in 
 reward of this surrender of the Scottish crown, fixed a large 
 annual income upon Baliol, who retired from public affairs, and 
 lived ever afterwards in such obscurity, that historians do not 
 even record the period of his death. Nothing which he after- 
 wards did bore the same marks of courage and talent, as the 
 enterprise in which he commanded the disinherited barons, and 
 obtained the great victory at the battle of Dupplin. It seems 
 therefore likely that he had upon that occasion some assistance 
 which he did not afterwards enjoy.
 
 1346-70 DEATH OF DAVID 141 
 
 Edward III. was not more fortunate in making war on 
 Scotland in his own name than when he used the pretext of 
 supporting Baliol. He marched into East Lothian in spring 
 1355, and committed such ravages that the period was long 
 marked by the name of the Burned Candlemas, because so 
 many towns and villages were burned. But the Scots had 
 removed every species of provisions which could be of use to 
 the invaders, and avoided a general battle, while they engaged 
 in a number of skirmishes. In this manner Edward was 
 compelled to retreat out of Scotland, after sustaining much 
 loss. 
 
 After the failure of this effort, Edward seems to have 
 despaired of the conquest of Scotland, and entered into terms 
 for a truce, and for setting the King at liberty. 
 
 Thus David II. at length obtained his freedom from the 
 English, after he had been detained in prison eleven years. 
 The Scots agreed to pay a ransom of one hundred thousand 
 merks, a heavy charge on a country always poor, and exhausted 
 by the late wars. The people were so delighted to see the 
 King once more that they followed him everywhere; and 
 (which shows the rudeness of the times) rushed even into his 
 private chamber, till, incensed at their troublesome and intru- 
 sive loyalty, the King snatched a mace from an officer, and 
 broke with his own royal hand the head of the liegeman who 
 was nearest to him. After this rebuke, saith the historian, he 
 was permitted to be private in his apartment. 
 
 The latter years of this King's life have nothing very re- 
 markable excepting that, after the death of Joanna of England, 
 his first wife, he made an imprudent marriage with one Mar- 
 garet Logic, a woman of great beauty, but of obscure family ; 
 he was afterwards divorced or separated from her. He had 
 no children by either of his wives. David the Second died at 
 the age of forty-seven years, in the castle of Edinburgh, 22d 
 February 1370-71. He had reigned forty-two years, of which 
 eleven were spent in captivity.
 
 U2 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XVI 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Accession of Robert Stewart War of 1385 Battle of Otterbur* 
 Death of Robert II. 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Edward III., Richard II. 
 France : Charles V. , Charles VI. 
 
 13701390 
 
 As David the Second died childless, the male line of his father, 
 the great Robert Bruce, was at an end. But the attachment 
 of the Scottish nation naturally turned to the family of that 
 heroic prince, and they resolved to confer the crown on a grand- 
 son of his by the mother's side. Marjory, the daughter of 
 Robert Bruce, had married Walter, the Lord High Steward of 
 Scotland, and the sixth of his family who had enjoyed that high 
 dignity, in consequence of possessing which the family had 
 acquired the surname of Stewart. This Walter Stewart, with 
 his wife Marjory, were ancestors of that long line of Stewarts 
 who afterwards ruled Scotland, and came at length to be kings 
 of England also. The last king of the Stewart family lost his 
 kingdoms at the great national Revolution in 1688, and his 
 son and grandsons died in exile. The female line have posses- 
 sion of the crown at this moment in the person of the present 
 sovereign. When, therefore, you hear of the line of Stewart, 
 you will know that the descendants of Walter Stewart and 
 Marjory Bruce are the family meant by that term. It is said 
 that the Stewarts were descended from Fleance, the son of 
 Banquo, whose posterity the witches declared were to be 
 kings of Scotland, and who was murdered by Macbeth. But 
 this seems a very doubtful tradition. 
 
 Walter, the Steward of Scotland, who married Bruce's 
 daughter, was a gallant man, and fought bravely at Bannock- 
 burn, where he had a high command. But he died young, and 
 much regretted. Robert Stewart, his son by Marjory Bruce, 
 grandson, of course, of King Robert, was the person now called 
 to the throne. He was a good and kind- tempered prince. 
 When young he had been a brave soldier ; but he was now 
 fifty-five years old, and subject to a violent inflammation in his
 
 1370-85 WAR OF 1385 143 
 
 eyes, which rendered them as red as blood. From these causes 
 he lived a good deal retired, and was not active enough to be at 
 the head of a fierce and unmanageable nation like the Scots. 
 
 Robert Stewart's ascent to the throne was not unopposed, 
 for it was claimed by a formidable competitor. This was 
 William, Earl of Douglas. That family, in which BO many 
 great men had arisen, was now come to a great pitch of power 
 and prosperity, and possessed almost a sovereign authority in 
 the southern parts of Scotland. The Earl of Douglas was on 
 the present occasion induced to depart from his claim, upon 
 his son being married to Euphemia, the daughter of Robert II. 
 Stewart therefore was crowned without further opposition. But 
 the extreme power of the Douglases, which raised them almost 
 to a level with the crown, was afterwards the occasion of great 
 national commotion and distress. 
 
 There were not many things of moment in the history of 
 Robert II. But the wars with England were less frequent, and 
 the Scots had learned a better way of conducting them. The 
 following instances may be selected. 
 
 In 1385 the French finding themselves hard pressed by the 
 English, in their own country, resolved to send an army into 
 Scotland, to assist that nation in making war upon the English, 
 and thus find work for the latter people at home. They sent, 
 therefore, one thousand men-at-arms, knights, and squires, 
 that is, in full armour ; and as each of these had four or five 
 soldiers under him, the whole force was very considerable. 
 They sent also twelve hundred suits of complete armour to the 
 Scots, with a large sum of money, to assist them to make war. 
 This great force was commanded by John de Vienne, High 
 Admiral of France, a brave and distinguished general. 
 
 In the meantime, the King of England, Richard II., sum- 
 moned together, on his side, a larger array perhaps than any 
 King of England had ever before commanded, and moved to- 
 wards the Scottish Border. The Scots also assembled large 
 forces, and the French Admiral expected there would be a great 
 pitched battle. He said to the Scottish nobles, "You have 
 always said, that if you had some hundreds of French men-at 
 arms to help you, you would give battle to the English. Now, 
 here we are to give you aid Let us give battle." 
 
 The Scottish nobles answered, that they would not run so 
 great a hazard, as risk the fate of the country in one battle ;
 
 144 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XVI 
 
 and one of them, probably Douglas, conveyed John de Vienne 
 to a narrow pass, where, unseen themselves, they might see the 
 army of England march through. The Scot made the admiral 
 remark at the great multitude of archers, the number and high 
 discipline of the English men-at-arms, and then asked the 
 Frenchman, as a soldier, whether he could advise the Scots to 
 oppose these clouds of archers with a few ill-trained Highland 
 bowmen, or encounter with their small trotting nags the onset 
 of the brilliant chivalry of England. 
 
 The Admiral de Vienne could not but own that the risk was 
 too unequal " But yet, if you do not fight," he said, " what 
 do you mean to do ? If you do not oppose this great force, the 
 English will destroy your country." 
 
 "Let them do their worst," said Douglas, smiling; "they 
 will find but little to destroy. Our people are all retired into 
 woods, hills, and morasses, and have driven off their cattle, 
 which is their only property, along with them. The English 
 will find nothing either to take away or to eat. The houses 
 of the gentlemen are small towers, with thick walls, which even 
 fire will not destroy ; as for the common people, they dwell in 
 mere huts, and if the English choose to burn them, a few trees 
 from the wood is all that is necessary to build them up 
 again." 
 
 " But what will you do with your army if you do not fight ?" 
 said the Frenchman ; " and how will your people endure the 
 distress, and famine, and plunder, which must be the conse- 
 quences of the invasion 1 " 
 
 "You shall see that our army will not lie idle," said 
 Douglas ; " and as for our Scottish people, they will endure 
 pillage, and they will endure famine, and every other extremity 
 of war ; but they will not endure an English master." 
 
 The event showed the truth of what Douglas had said. The 
 great army of England entered Scotland on the eastern side ot 
 the frontier, and marched on, much embarrassed and distressed 
 for want of provisions, laying waste the villages and what pro- 
 perty they found, but finding very little to destroy, and nothing 
 to subsist upon. On the contrary, no sooner did the Scottish 
 nobles learn that the English were fairly engaged in Scotland, 
 than, with a numerous army, consisting chiefly of light cavalry, 
 like that led by Douglas and Randolph in 1327, they burst 
 into the western counties of England, where they gained more
 
 1385-8 BATTLE OF OTTERBURN 145 
 
 spoil, and did more damage, in the course of a day or two's 
 march, than the English could have done in Scotland had they 
 burned the whole country from the Border to Aberdeen. 
 
 The English were quickly called back to the defence of their 
 own country, and though there had been no battle, yet from 
 bad roads, want of forage, scantiness of provisions, and similar 
 causes, they had sustained a heavy loss of men and horses ; 
 while the Scottish army, on the contrary, had kept good cheer 
 in a country so much richer than their own, and were grown 
 wealthy by plunder. This wise scheme of defence had been 
 recommended to his posterity by the Bruce as the only effectual 
 mode of defending the Scottish frontier. 
 
 As to the French auxiliaries, they quarrelled very much 
 with the reception they met with. They complained that the 
 nation which they came to assist treated them with no kindness 
 or good-will, and that they withheld from them forage, provi- 
 sions, and other supplies. The Scots replied, on the other 
 hand, that their allies were an expense to them, without being 
 of any use ; that their wants were many, and could not be 
 supplied in so poor a country as Scotland ; and finally, that 
 they insulted the inhabitants, and pillaged the country wherever 
 they durst. Nor would the Scots permit the French to leave 
 Scotland till they gave security that they would pay the ex- 
 penses of their own maintenance. The French knights, who 
 had hoped to acquire both wealth and fame, returned in very 
 bad humour from a kingdom where the people were so wild and 
 uncivilised, and the country so mountainous and poor ; where 
 the patches of cultivated land bore no proportion to the ex- 
 tended wastes, and the wild animals were much more numerous 
 than those which were trained for the use of man. 
 
 It was from prudence, not from want of courage, that the 
 Scots avoided great battles with the English. They readily 
 engaged in smaller actions, when they fought with the utmost 
 valour on both sides, till, as an old historian expresses it, sword 
 and lance could endure no longer, and then they would part 
 from each other, saying, " Good day ; and thanks for the sport 
 you have shown." A very remarkable instance of such a des- 
 perate battle occurred in the year 1388. 
 
 The Scottish nobles had determined upon an invasion of 
 England on a large scale, and had assembled a great army for 
 that purpose ; but learning that the people of Northumberland 
 
 10
 
 146 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP, xvi 
 
 were raising an army on the eastern frontier, they resolved to 
 limit their incursion to that which might be achieved by the 
 Earl of Douglas, with a chosen band of four or five thousand 
 men. With this force he penetrated into the mountainous 
 frontier of England, where an assault was least expected, and 
 issuing forth near Newcastle, fell upon the flat and rich country 
 around, slaying, plundering, burning, and loading his army 
 with spoil. 
 
 Percy, Earl of Northumberland, an English noble of great 
 power, and with whom the Douglas had frequently had en- 
 counters, sent his two sons, Sir Henry and Sir Ralph Percy, 
 to stop the progress of this invasion. Both were gallant 
 knights ; but the first, who, from his impetuosity, was called 
 Hotspur, was one of the most distinguished warriors in England, 
 as Douglas was in Scotland. The brothers threw themselves 
 hastily into Newcastle, to defend that important town ; and as 
 Douglas, in an insulting manner, drew up his followers before 
 the walls, they came out to skirmish with the Scots. Douglas 
 and Henry Percy encountered personally; and it so chanced 
 that Douglas in the struggle got possession of Hotspur's spear, 
 to the end of which was attached a small ornament of silk, 
 embroidered with pearls, on which was represented a lion, the 
 cognisance, as it is called, of the Percies. Douglas shook this 
 trophy aloft, and declared that he would carry it into Scotland, 
 and plant it on his castle of Dalkeith. 
 
 " That," said Percy, " shalt thou never do. I will regain 
 my lance ere thou canst get back into Scotland." 
 
 " Then," said Douglas, " come to seek it, and thou shalt 
 find it before my tent." 
 
 The Scottish army, having completed the purpose of their 
 expedition, began their retreat up the vale of the little river 
 Reed, which afforded a tolerable road running north-westward 
 towards their own frontier. They encamped at Otterburn, 
 about twenty miles from the Scottish border, on the 19th 
 August 1388. 
 
 In the middle of the night the alarm arose in the Scottish 
 camp that the English host were coming upon them, and the 
 moonlight showed the approach of Sir Henry Percy, with a 
 body of men superior in number to that of Douglas. He had 
 already crossed the Reed water, and was advancing towards 
 the left flunk uf the Scottish army. Douglas, not choosing tc
 
 1388 DEATH OF ROBERT II. 147 
 
 receive the assault in that position, drew his men out of the 
 camp, and with a degree of military skill which could scarce 
 have been expected when his forces were of such an undisciplined 
 character, he altogether changed the position of the army, and 
 presented his troops with their front to the advancing English. 
 
 Hotspur, in the meantime, marched his squadrons through 
 the deserted camp, where there were none left but a few 
 servants and stragglers of the army. The interruptions which 
 the English troops met with threw them a little into disorder, 
 when the moon arising showed them the Scottish army, which 
 they had supposed to be retreating, drawn up in complete 
 order, and prepared to fight. The battle commenced with the 
 greatest fury ; for Percy and Douglas were the two most dis- 
 tinguished soldiers of their time, and each army trusted in the 
 courage and talents of their commanders, whose names were 
 shouted on either side. The Scots, who were outnumbered, 
 were at length about to give way, when Douglas, their leader, 
 caused his banner to advance, attended by his best men. He 
 himself shouting his war-cry of "Douglas!" rushed forward, 
 clearing his way with the blows of his battle-axe, and breaking 
 into the very thickest of the enemy. He fell, at length, under 
 three mortal wounds. Had his death been observed by the 
 enemy, the event would probably have decided the battle 
 against the Scots ; but the English only knew that some brave 
 mau-at-arms had fallen. Meantime the other Scottish nobles 
 pressed forward, and found their general dying among several 
 of his faithful esquires and pages, who lay slain around. A 
 stout priest, called William of North Berwick, the chaplain of 
 Douglas, was protecting the body of his wounded patron with 
 a long lance. 
 
 " How fares it, cousin ? " said Sinclair, the first Scottish 
 knight who came up to the expiring leader. 
 
 " Indifferently," answered Douglas ; " but blessed be God, 
 my ancestors have died in fields of battle, not on down-beds. 
 I sink fast ; but let them still cry my war-cry, and conceal my 
 death from my followers. There was a tradition in our family 
 that a dead Douglas should win a field, and I trust it will be 
 this day accomplished." 
 
 The nobles did as he had enjoined ; they concealed the 
 Earl's body, and again rushed on to the battle, shouting 
 "Douglas! Douglas!" louder than before. The English were
 
 148 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XVII 
 
 weakened by the loss of the brave brothers, Henry and 
 Ralph Percy, both of whom were made prisoners, fighting most 
 gallantly, and almost no man of note amongst the English 
 escaped death or captivity. Hence a Scottish poet has said of 
 the name of Douglas, 
 
 " Hosts have been known at that dread sound to yield, 
 And, Douglas dead, his name hath won the field." 
 
 Sir Henry Percy became the prisoner of Sir Hugh Mont- 
 gomery, who obliged him for ransom to build a castle for him 
 at Penoon in Ayrshire. The battle of Otterburn was disastrous 
 to the leaders on both sides Percy being made captive, and 
 Douglas slain on the field. It has been the subject of many 
 songs and poems, and the great historian Froissart says, that 
 one other action only excepted, it was the best fought battle 
 of that warlike time. 
 
 Robert II. died at his castle of Dundonald in Kyle, after a 
 short illness, in the seventy-fifth year of his age, on the 19th 
 April 1390. His reign of nineteen years did not approach in 
 glory to that of his maternal grandfather, Robert Bruce ; but 
 it was far more fortunate than that of David IL The claims 
 of Baliol to the crown were not revived ; and though the English 
 made more than one incursion into Scotland, they were never 
 able to retain long possession of the country. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Accession of Robert III. Disorderly State of the Highlands Clan 
 Chattan and Clan Kay The Duke of Rothsay Battle of 
 Homildon of Shrewsbury Capture of Prince James by tfie 
 Engliih, and death of Robert HI. 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Richard II., Henry IV. 
 France : Charles VI. 
 
 13901406 
 
 THE eldest son of Robert II. was originally called John. But 
 it was a popular remark that the kings named John, both of 
 France and England, had been unfortunate, and the Scottish
 
 1388-92 ROBERT III. 149 
 
 people were very partial to the name of Robert, from its having 
 been borne by the great Bruce. John Stewart, there- 
 fore, on ascending the Scottish throne, changed his 
 name to that of Robert III. We shall see, however, 
 that this poor king remained as unfortunate as if his name had 
 still been John. 
 
 The disturbances of the Highlands were one of the plagues 
 of his reign. You must recollect that that extensive range of 
 mountains was inhabited by a race of men different in language 
 and manners from the Lowlanders, and divided into families 
 called Clans. The English termed them the Wild Scots, and 
 the French the Scottish Savages; and, in good truth, very 
 wild and savage they seem to have been. The losses which 
 the Low Country had sustained by the English wars had 
 weakened the districts next to the Highlands so much, that 
 they became unable to repress the incursions of the mountaineers, 
 who descended from their hills, took spoil, burned and destroyed, 
 as if in the country of an enemy. 
 
 In 1392 a large body of these Highlanders broke down 
 from the Grampian Mountains. The chiefs were called Clan- 
 Donnochy, or sons of Duncan, answering to the clan now called 
 Robertson. A party of the Ogilvies and Lindsays, under Sir 
 Walter Ogilvy, Sheriff of Angus, marched hastily against them, 
 and charged them with their lances. But notwithstanding 
 the advantage of their being mounted and completely sheathed 
 in armour, the Highlanders defended themselves with such 
 obstinacy as to slay the sheriff and sixty of his followers, 
 and repulse the Lowland gentlemen. To give some idea of 
 their ferocity, it is told that Sir David Lindsay, having in the 
 first encounter run his lance through the body of one of the 
 Highlanders, bore him down and pinned him to the earth. In 
 this condition, and in his dying agonies, the Highlander writhed 
 himself upwards on the spear, and exerted his last strength in 
 fetching a sweeping blow at tho armed knight with his two- 
 handed sword. The stroke, made with all the last energies of 
 a dying man, cut through Lindsay's stirrup and steel-boot, and 
 though it did not sever his leg from his body, yet wounded him 
 so severely as to oblige him to quit the field. 
 
 It happened, fortunately perhaps for the Lowlands, that the 
 wild Highlanders were as much addicted to quarrel with each 
 other as with their Lowland neighbours. Two clans, or rather
 
 150 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP, xvn 
 
 two leagues or confederacies, composed each of several separate 
 clans, 1 fell into such deadly feud with each other as filled the 
 whole neighbourhood with slaughter and discord. 
 
 When this feud or quarrel could be no otherwise ended, it 
 was resolved that the difference should be decided by a combat 
 of thirty men of the Clan Chattan, against the same number 
 of the Clan Kay; that the battle should take place on the 
 North Inch of Perth, a beautiful and level meadow, in part 
 surrounded by the river Tay ; and that it should be fought in 
 presence of the King and his nobles. Now, there was a cruel 
 policy in this arrangement ; for it was to be supposed that all 
 the best and leading men of each clan would desire to be among 
 the thirty which were to fight for their honour, and it was no 
 less to be expected that the battle would be very bloody and 
 desperate. Thus, the probable event would be, that both clans, 
 having lost very many of their best and bravest men, would be 
 more easily managed in future. Such was probably the view 
 of the King and his counsellors in permitting this desperate 
 conflict, which, however, was much in the spirit of the times. 
 
 The parties on each side were drawn out, armed with sword 
 and target, axe and dagger, and stood looking on each other 
 with fierce and savage aspects, when, just as the signal for fight 
 was expected, the commander of the Clan Chattan perceived 
 that one of his men, whose heart had failed him, had deserted 
 his standard. There was no time to seek another man from 
 the clan, so the chieftain, as his only resource, was obliged to 
 offer a reward to any one who would fight in the room of the 
 fugitive. Perhaps you think it might be difficult to get a man, 
 who, for a small hire, would undergo the perils of a battle 
 which was likely to be so obstinate and deadly. But in that 
 fighting age men valued their lives lightly. One Henry Wynd, 
 a citizen of Perth, and a saddler by trade, a little bandy-legged 
 man, but of great strength and activity, and well accustomed 
 to use the broadsword, offered himself, for half a French crown, 
 to serve on the part of the Clan Chattan in the battle of that 
 day. 
 
 The signal was then given by sound of the royal trumpets, 
 
 and of the great war-bagpipes of the Highlanders, and the two 
 
 parties fell on each other with the utmost fury ; their natural 
 
 ferocity of temper being excited by feudal hatred against the 
 
 1 See " The Fair Maid of Perth," Karcrlei/
 
 1396 CLANS CHATTAN AND KAY 151 
 
 hostile clan, zeal for the honour of their own, and a conscious- 
 ness that they were fighting in presence of the King and nobles 
 of Scotland. As they fought with the two-handed sword and 
 axe, the wounds they inflicted on each other were of a ghastly 
 size and character. Heads were cloven asunder, limbs were 
 lopped from the trunk. The meadow was soon drenched with 
 blood, and covered with dead and wounded men. 
 
 In the midst of the deadly conflict, the chieftain of the Claix 
 Chattan observed that Henry Wynd, after he had slain one 
 of the Clan Kay, drew aside, and did not seem willing to fight 
 more. 
 
 " How is this," said he, " art thou afraid ?" 
 
 "Not I," answered Henry; "but I have done enough of 
 work for half-a-crown." 
 
 "Forward and fight," said the Highland chief; "he that 
 doth not grudge his day's work, I will not stint him in his 
 wages." 
 
 Thus encouraged, Henry Wynd again plunged into the con- 
 flict, and, by his excellence as a swordsman, contributed a great 
 deal to the victory, which at length fell to the Clan Chattan. 
 Ten of the victors, with Henry Wynd, whom the Highlanders 
 called the Gow Chrom (that is, the crooked or bandy-legged 
 smith, for he was both a smith and a saddler, war-saddles being 
 then made of steel), were left alive, but they were all wounded. 
 Only one of the Clan Kay survived, and he was unhurt. But 
 this single individual dared not oppose himself to eleven men, 
 though all more or less injured, but, throwing himself into 
 the Tay, swam to the other side, and went off to carry to the 
 Highlands the news of his clan's defeat. It is said, he was so 
 ill received by his kinsmen that he put himself to death. 
 
 Some part of the above story is matter of tradition, but the 
 general fact is certain. Henry Wynd was rewarded to the 
 Highland chieftain's best abilities ; but it was remarked that, 
 when the battle was over, he was not able to tell the name of 
 the clan he had fought for, replying, when asked on which 
 side he had been, that he was fighting for his own hand. 
 Hence the proverb, " Every man for his own hand, as Henry 
 Wynd fought. 
 
 In the meantime troubles, to which we have formerly 
 alluded, broke out in the family of Robert III. The King 
 had been lamed in early youth by the kick of a horse, which
 
 152 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XVII 
 
 had prevented his engaging in war. He was by disposition 
 peaceful, religious, and just, but not firm of mind, and easily 
 imposed on by those about him, and particularly by his brother 
 the Duke of Albany, a man of an enterprising character, but 
 crafty, ambitious, and cruel. 
 
 This prince, the next heir to the crown, if the King's 
 children could be displaced, continued to sow strife and 
 animosity betwixt his father and the Duke of Rothsay, the 
 eldest son of Robert III., and heir to his kingdom. Rothsay 
 was young, gay, and irregular, his father old, and strict in his 
 principles ; occasions of quarrel easily arose betwixt them, and 
 Albany represented the conduct of the son to the father in the 
 worst light. 
 
 The King and Queen seem to have been of opinion that 
 the marriage of the prince might put an end to his idle and 
 licentious course of life. But Albany, whom they consulted, 
 conducted this important affair in a manner disgraceful to the 
 royal family. He proceeded upon the principle, that the prince 
 should marry the daughter of such Scottish noble as was willing 
 to pay the largest sum of money for the honour of connecting 
 himself with the royal house. The powerful George, Earl of 
 March, was at first the largest offerer. But although the 
 prince was contracted to the daughter of that nobleman 
 accordingly, yet the match was broken off by Albany, when a 
 still larger sum was offered by the Earl of Douglas. His pre- 
 decessor Earl James, killed at Otterburn, had married the 
 King's sister, and Earl Archibald was now desirous that his 
 own daughter should be even more nearly connected with 
 royalty, by wedding the heir of the throne. They were married 
 accordingly, but in an evil hour. 
 
 The prince continued to give offence by the levity of his 
 conduct; Albany continued to pour his complaints into the 
 King's ear, and Douglas became also the enemy of his royal 
 son-in-law. 
 
 The history of this reign being imperfect, we do not dis- 
 tinctly know what charges were brought against the Duke of 
 Rothsay, or how far they were true or false. But it seems 
 certain that he was delivered up by his father to the power of 
 his uncle of Albany, and that of his father-in-law, the Earl of 
 Douglas, who treated him with the utmost cruelty. 
 
 A villain named Ramorgny, with the assistance of Sir
 
 1396-1402 DUKE OF ROTHSAY 153 
 
 William Lindsay, was furnished with a warrant for apprehend- 
 ing and confining the person of the heir-apparent of Scotland. 
 Armed with this authority, they seized upon him as he was 
 journeying in Fife, without any suspicion placed him upon 
 an ordinary work-horse, and conducted him to the strong tower, 
 or castle, of Falkland, belonging to Albany. It was a heavy 
 fall of rain, but the poor prince was allowed no other shelter 
 than a peasant's cloak. When in that gloomy fortress, he was 
 thrown into a dungeon, and for fifteen days suffered to remain 
 without food, under the charge of two ruffians named Wright 
 and Selkirk, whose task it was to watch the agony of their 
 victim till it terminated in death. It is said that one woman, 
 touched with his lamentations, contrived to bring him from time 
 to time thin barley cakes, concealed in her veil, which she 
 passed through the bars of his prison ; and that another woman 
 supplied him with milk from her own bosom. Both were dis- 
 covered, and what scanty resources their charity could afford 
 were intercepted ; and the unhappy prince died in the month of 
 March 1402 of famine, the most severe and lingering mode 
 among the many by which life may be ended. 1 
 
 There is no evidence that the old King, infirm and simple- 
 minded as he was, suspected the foul play which his son had 
 received ; but the vengeance of God seemed to menace the 
 country in which such a tragedy had been acted. The Earl 
 of March, incensed at the breach of the contract betwixt his 
 daughter and the prince, deserted the Scottish cause, and em- 
 braced that of England. He fled to Northumberland, and 
 from thence made repeated incursions upon the Scottish 
 frontier. 
 
 The Earl of Douglas, placing himself at the head of ten 
 thousand men, made an incursion into England, with banner 
 displayed, and took great spoil. But, in returning, he was way- 
 laid by the celebrated Hotspur, who, with George of March 
 and others, had assembled a numerous army. Douglas, with 
 the same infatuation as had been displayed at so many other 
 battles, took his ground on an eminence called Homildon, where 
 
 1 " When nature at last sunk, his body was found in a state too dreadful 
 to be described, which showed that, in the extremities of hunger, he had 
 gnawed and torn his own flesh. It was then carried to the monastery of 
 Lindores, and there privately buried, while a report was circulated that 
 the prince had been taken ill and died of a dysentery." TYTF.BR.
 
 154 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XVII 
 
 his numerous ranks were exposed to the English arrows, the 
 Scots suffering great loss, for which they were unable 
 * re P a y the enemy. While they were thus sustain- 
 ing a dreadfully unequal combat, a bold Scottish 
 knight, named Sir John Swinton, called with a loud voice, 
 "Why do we remain here on this hillside, to be shot like 
 stags with arrows, when we might rush down upon the English, 
 and dispute the combat hand to hand? Let those who will 
 descend with me, that we may gain victory, or fall like men." 
 There was a young nobleman in the host, called the Lord of 
 Gordon. The person living whom he most detested was this 
 same Sir John Swinton, because in some private quarrel he 
 had slain Gordon's father. But when he heard him give such 
 resolute and brave advice in that dreadful extremity, he re- 
 quired to be made a knight at Swinton's hand ; " For," said he, 
 " from the hand of no wiser leader, or braver man, can I ask 
 that honour." Swinton granted his desire, and having hastily 
 performed the ceremony by striking the young man on the neck 
 with the flat of his sword, and bidding him arise a knight, he 
 and Gordon rushed down side by side with their followers, and 
 made considerable slaughter amongst the English. But not 
 being supported by other chiefs, they were overpowered and 
 cut to pieces. The Scots lost the battle, sustaining a total 
 defeat ; and Douglas, wounded, and having lost an eye, fell into 
 the hands of the English as a prisoner. 
 
 A singular train of events followed, which belong rather 
 to English than Scottish history, but which it is proper you 
 should know. The Earl of Northumberland, father to Hotspur, 
 associated with other discontented nobles, had determined to 
 rebel against Henry IV., then King of England. To strengthen 
 their forces, they gave Douglas his liberty, and engaged him to 
 assist them in the civil war which was impending. Douglas 
 came accordingly with a band of his countrymen, and joined 
 Henry Percy, called Hotspur. They marched together into 
 England, and fought a memorable battle with the royal forces 
 near Shrewsbury. As Henry IV. was personally present in the 
 battle, Douglas resolved to seek him out, and end the contest 
 by killing or making him prisoner. The King had, however, 
 several other champions in the field, armed and mounted exactly 
 like himself. Of these, Douglas killed no less than three, as 
 they appeared one after another; so that when at length he
 
 1402-6 DEATH OF ROBERT III. 155 
 
 encountered the real king, he called out, with amazement, 
 " Where the devil do all these kings come from V The Scottish 
 earl attacked Henry himself with the same fury with which he 
 had assaidted those who represented him, overthrew the royal 
 banner, slaying a valiant knight, Sir Thomas Blunt, to whose 
 care it had been committed, and was about to kill the King. 
 But numbers, and especially the brave Prince of Wales, his son, 
 came to the King of England's assistance ; and before Douglas 
 could fight his way forward to Henry, Hotspur was killed by an 
 arrow-shot, and his party were obliged to fly. Douglas at length 
 condescended to fly also, but his horse stumbling in ascending 
 a hill, he was again wounded and taken. 
 
 We return to poor King Robert III., who was now exhausted 
 by age, infirmities, and family calamity. He had still a re- 
 maining son, called James, about eleven years old, and he was 
 probably afraid to entrust him to the keeping of Albany, as his 
 death would have rendered that ambitious prince next heir to 
 the throne. He resolved, therefore, to send the young prince to 
 France, under pretence that he would receive a better educa- 
 tion there than Scotland could afford him. An English vessel 
 captured that on board of which the prince was sailing 
 to France, and James was sent to London. When 13t i 4 * arch 
 Henry heard that the Prince of Scotland was in his 
 power, he resolved to detain him a prisoner. This was very 
 unjust, for the countries of England and Scotland were at peace 
 together at the time. The King sent him to prison, however, 
 saying, that " The prince would be as well educated at his court 
 as at that of France, for that he understood French well." 
 This was said in mockery, but Henry kept his word in this 
 point ; and though the Scottish prince was confined unjustly, 
 he received an excellent education at the expense of the English 
 monarch. 
 
 This new misfortune, which placed the only remaining son of 
 the poor old King in the hands of the English, seems 
 to have broken the heart of Robert III., who died 
 about a year afterwards, overwhelmed with calamities 
 and infirmity. 1 
 
 1 "This last blow," says Sir Walter Scott elsewhere, "completely 
 broke the heart of the unhappy King Robert III. Vengeance followed, 
 though with a slow pace, the treachery and cruelty of his brother. Robert 
 of Albany's own gray hairs went, indeed, in peace to the grave, and
 
 156 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XVI 1 1 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 Regency of Robert, Duke of Albany Jedburgh Castle BattU of Harlaw 
 Regency of Murdac, Duke of Albany The Scots in France 
 Deliverance of James 1. from Captivity. 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Henry IV., Henry V., 
 Henry VI. France : Charles VI., Charles VII. 
 
 1406 1424 
 
 ALBANY, the brother of Robert III., was now Regent of the 
 kingdom, of which he had long actually possessed the supreme 
 government. He was, it may be supposed, in no great hurry 
 to obtain the release of his nephew Prince James, whose return 
 to Scotland must have ended his own power. He was, as we 
 have seen, a wicked, cruel, and ambitious man ; yet he was 
 regular in administering justice, and took great care not to lay 
 any taxes on the people. Even in his time, it would seem that 
 the extent of writings used for the transference of property had 
 become a subject of complaint. When upon this subject, Albany 
 
 he transferred the regency, which he had so foully acquired, to his son 
 Murdoch. But nineteen years after the death of the old King, James I. 
 returned to Scotland, and Duke Murdoch of Albany, with his sons, was 
 brought to the scaffold, in expiation of his father's guilt and his own." 
 Fair Maid of Perth. On the character of King Robert III. , the second 
 of the ill-fated family of Stewart who filled the throne of Scotland, Sir 
 Walter remarks : " He had many virtues, and was not without talent ; 
 but it was his great misfortune that, like others of his devoted line, his 
 merits were not of a kind suited to the part he was called upon to perform 
 in life. The King of so fierce a people as the Scots then were, ought to 
 have been warlike, prompt, and active, liberal in rewarding services, strict 
 in punishing crimes ; one whose conduct should make him feared as well 
 as beloved. The qualities of Robert the Third were the reverse of all 
 these. In youth he had indeed seen battles ; but, without incurring dis- 
 grace, he had never manifested the chivalrous love of war and peril, or the 
 eager desire to distinguish himself by dangerous achievements, which that 
 age expected from all who were of noble birth, and had claims to authority. 
 Besides, his military career was very short. Amidst the tumult of a 
 tournament, the young Earl of Carrick, such was then his title, received 
 a kick from a horse ; in consequence of which, he was lame for the rest of 
 his life. As Robert had never testified much predilection for violent ex- 
 ertion, he did not probably much regret the incapacities which exempted 
 him from these active scenes." ibid.
 
 1406-11 REGENCY OF ALBANY 157 
 
 used often to praise the simplicity and brevity of an ancient 
 charter by King Athelstane, a Saxon monarch. It had been 
 granted to the ancient Northumbrian family called Roddam of 
 Roddam, and had fallen into the hands of the Scots on some of 
 their plundering parties. 
 
 Jedburgh Castle, which the English had kept ever since the 
 battle of Durham, had been taken by the Teviotdale Borderers, 
 and it was proposed that it should be pulled down, in order 
 that it might not again afford the enemy a stronghold on the 
 frontiers. This was a common policy with the Scots, who 
 considered their desert woods and mountains as better points 
 of defence than walled castles, which the English understood 
 how to attack or defend much better than they did. 
 
 To defray the expense of maintaining the men engaged in 
 demolishing this large and strong fortress, it was proposed to 
 lay a small tax of two pennies on each hearth in Scotland. 
 But the Regent determined to pay it out of his own and the 
 King's revenue, resolved, as he said, that he would not begin 
 his regency by a measure which must afflict the poor. 
 
 In other respects, Albany was an unworthy character. He 
 was not even brave, which was a failing uncommon in his age 
 and family; and though he engaged in several wars with 
 England, he did not gain either honour or success in any of 
 them. 
 
 One of the most remarkable events during his government 
 was the battle of Harlaw. This was fought by a prince, called 
 Donald of the Isles, who possessed all the islands on the west 
 side of Scotland. He was also the proprietor of great estates 
 on the mainland, and aspired to the rank and used the style 
 of an independent sovereign. 
 
 This Donald, in the year 1411, laid claim to the earldom of 
 Ross, then vacant, which the Regent had determined to bestow 
 on a member of his own family. Donald of the Isles raised ten 
 thousand men, all Highlanders like himself, and invading the 
 north of Scotland, came as far as a place called Harlaw, about 
 ten miles from Aberdeen. Here he was encountered by the 
 Earl of Mar, at the head of an inferior army, but composed of 
 Lowland gentlemen, better armed and disciplined 
 than the followers of Donald. A most desperate 
 battle ensued, in which both parties suffered great loss. 
 On that of Donald, the chiefs of the clans called Macintosh and
 
 158 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XVJI1 
 
 MacLean were both slain, with about a thousand men. Mar 
 lost nearly five hundred brave gentlemen, amougst them Ogilvy, 
 Scrymgeour, Irviue of Drum, and other men of rank. The 
 Provost of Aberdeen, who had brought to the Earl of Mar's 
 host a detachment of the inhabitants of that city, was slain, 
 fighting bravely. This loss was so much regretted by the citi- 
 zens, that a resolution was adopted, that no Provost should in 
 future go out in his official capacity beyond the limits of the 
 immediate territory of the town. This rule is still observed. 
 
 But though the Lowluuders suffered severely, the High- 
 landers had the worst, and were obliged to retreat after the 
 battle. This was fortunate for Scotland, since otherwise the 
 Highlanders, at that time a wild and barbarous people, would 
 have overrun, and perhaps actually conquered, a great part of 
 the civilised country. The battle of Harlaw was long re- 
 membered, owing to the bravery with which the field was 
 disputed, and the numbers which fell on both sides. 
 
 The Regent Albany, after having ruled Scotland for about 
 thirty-four years, including the time under his father and 
 brother, died at the castle of Stirling in the thirteenth year of 
 his sole regency, aged upwards of eighty years, on the 3d Sep- 
 tember 1419. He was succeeded in his high office by his son 
 Murdac, Duke of Albany, a man who had neither the vices 
 nor the virtues of his father. Duke Robert was active, crafty, 
 suspicious, and, in one sense at least, wise. The son was in- 
 dulgent, indolent, and at the same time simple and easy to be 
 imposed upon. Many quarrels and feuds broke out in the 
 country, and even in his own family, which had been suppressed 
 by the strong hand of his father. Little memorable took place 
 in the regency of Murdac, but it was remarkable for the great 
 renown which the Scots won in the wars of France. 
 
 I have told you that a body of French knights came to Scot- 
 land to assist the Scots against the English ; and you must 
 now know how the Scots repaid the obligation, by sending 
 over a body of men to assist Charles, King of France, then in 
 great danger of being completely conquered by Henry V. of 
 England, who seemed on the point of expelling him from the 
 kingdom, and possessing himself of the crown of France. A 
 small army of about six or seven thousand chosen Scots had 
 gone to France, under the command of John Stewart, Earl of 
 Buchan, the second son of the Regent Robert, Duke of Albany
 
 I 4 M-2I SCOTS IN FRANCE 159 
 
 He had under him Lindsay, Swinton, and other men of con- 
 sequence and fame. They gained an important victory over 
 the English, then under command of the Duke of Clarence, 
 brother to Henry V. This prince, hearing that there was a 
 body of Scots encamped at a town called Bauge', and enraged 
 that this northern people should not only defend their own 
 country from the English, but also come over to give them 
 trouble in France, made a hasty march to surprise them. He 
 left behind him those celebrated archers, who had usually 
 afforded the English means of conquest over the euemy, because 
 he relied upon the rapidity of his motions, and understood the 
 Scots were observing indifferent discipline, and not keeping a 
 vigilant watch. He arrived at Bauge", followed only by the 
 knights and men-at-arms on horseback. Having forced the 
 passage of a bridge, Clarence was pressing forward at the head 
 of his cavalry, distinguished by the richness of his armour, and 
 by a splendid golden coronet which he wore over his helmet. 
 At this moment the Scottish knights charged the enemy. Sir 
 John Swinton galloped against the Duke of Clarence, and un- 
 horsed him with his lance, and the Earl of Buchan dashed out 
 his brains with a battle-axe or mace. A great many 
 English knights and nobles were slain at this ren- ^March 
 counter. The French King, to reward the valour of 
 the Scots, created the Earl of Buchan Constable of France 
 (one of the highest offices in the kingdom), and Count of 
 Aubigny. 
 
 The Scots, incited by the renown and wealth which their 
 countrymen had acquired, came over to France in greater 
 numbers, and the Earl of Douglas himself was tempted to 
 bring over a little army, in which the best and noblest of the 
 gentlemen of the south of Scotland of course enrolled them- 
 selves. They who did not go themselves, sent their sons and 
 brothers. Sir Alexander Home of Home had intended to take 
 this course ; and his brother, David Home of Wedderburn, was 
 equipped for the expedition. The chief himself came down 
 to the vessel to see Douglas and his brother embark. But 
 when the earl saw his old companion-in-arms about to take 
 leave of him, he said, " Ah ! Sir Alexander, who would have 
 thought that thou and I should ever have parted !" 
 
 " Neither will we part now, my lord," said Sir Alexander ; 
 and suddenly changing his purpose, he sent back his brothex
 
 160 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XVIII 
 
 David to take care of his castle, family, and estate, aud going 
 to France with his old friend, died with him at the battle of 
 Verneuil. 
 
 The Earl of Douglas, whose military fame was so great, 
 received high honours from the King of France, and was 
 created Duke of Touraine. The earl was used to ridicule the 
 Duke of Bedford, who then acted as Regent for Henry VI. in 
 France, and gave him the nickname of John with the leaden 
 sword. Upon the 17th August 1424, Douglas received a 
 message from the Duke of Bedford, that he intended to come 
 and dine and drink wine with him. Douglas well understood 
 the nature of the visit, and sent back word, that he should be 
 welcome. The Scots and French prepared for battle, while 
 their chiefs consulted together, and unfortunately differed in 
 opinion. The Earl of Douglas, who considered their situation 
 as favourable, recommended that they should receive the attack 
 of the English, instead of advancing to meet them. The 
 French Count de Narbonne, however, insisted that they should 
 march forward to the attack; and putting the French in 
 motion, declared he would move to the fight whether the Scots 
 did so or not. Douglas was thus compelled to advance like- 
 wise, but it was in disorder. The English archers in the mean- 
 time showered their arrows on the French ; their men-at-arms 
 charged ; and a total route of the allied army was the conse- 
 quence. Douglas and Buchan stood their ground, fought 
 desperately, and died nobly. Home, Lindsay, Swinton, and 
 far the greater part of that brave Scottish band of auxiliaries, 
 were killed on the spot. 
 
 The great Earl of Douglas, thus slain at Verneuil, was dis- 
 tinguished from the rest of his family by the name of Tine- 
 man, that is Loseman, as he was defeated in the great battles 
 of Homildon, Shrewsbury, and finally in that of Verneuil, 
 where he lost his life. His contemporary and rival, George, 
 Earl of March, though not so celebrated a warrior, was as 
 remarkable for being fortunate ; for whether he fought on the 
 Scottish or English side, his party was always victorious. The 
 slender remains of the Scottish forces were adopted by Charles 
 of France as a life-guard ; a body which was kept up by his 
 successors for a great many years. 
 
 We return now to Scotland, where the Regent Murdac of 
 Albany was so far from being able to guide the affairs of the
 
 1424 DELIVERANCE OF JAMES I. 161 
 
 state, that he could not control his own sons. There were 
 two of them, haughty, licentious young men, who respected 
 neither the authority of God nor man, and that of their father 
 least of all Their misbehaviour was so great, that Murdac 
 began to think of putting an end to their bad conduct and his 
 own government at the same time, by obtaining the deliver- 
 ance of the King from English captivity. A singular piece of 
 insolence, on the part of his eldest son, is said to have deter- 
 mined him to this measure. 
 
 At this time the amusement of hawking (that is, of taking 
 birds of game by means of trained hawks) was a pastime 
 greatly esteemed by the nobility. The Regent Murdac had 
 one falcon of peculiar excellence, which he valued. His eldest 
 son, Walter Stewart, had often asked this bird of his father, 
 and been as often denied. At length one day when the Regent 
 had the hawk sitting upon his wrist, in the way that falconers 
 carry such birds, Walter renewed his importunity about the 
 falcon ; and when his father again refused it, he snatched it 
 from his wrist, and wrung its neck round. His father, greatly 
 offended at so gross an insult, said, in his anger, " Since thou 
 wilt give me neither reverence nor obedience, I will fetch 
 home one whom we must all obey." From that moment, he 
 began to bargain with the English in good earnest that they 
 should restore James, now King of Scotland, to his own 
 dominions. 
 
 The English Government were not unwilling to deliver up 
 James, the rather that he had fallen in love with Joanna, the 
 Earl of Somerset's daughter, nearly related to the royal family 
 of England. They considered that this alliance would incline 
 the young prince to peace with England ; and that the education 
 which he had received, and the friendships which he had formed 
 in that country, would incline him to be a good and peaceable 
 neighbour. The Scots agreed to pay a considerable ransom ; 
 and upon these terms James, the first of that name, was set 
 at liberty, and returned to become king in Scotland, after 
 eighteen years' captivity. He and his queen were crowned at 
 Scone, 21st May 1424. 
 
 11
 
 162 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CIIAP. XIX 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 Accession of James I. Execution of Murdac, Duke of Albany State 
 of the Highlands Murder of the King Character of James I. 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Henry VL 
 France : Charles VII. 
 
 14241437 
 
 THIS King James, the first monarch of the name, was also 
 the first of his unfortunate family who showed a high degree 
 of talent. Robert II. and Robert III., his father and grand- 
 father, were both rather amiable as individuals than respected 
 for their endowments as monarchs. But James had received 
 an excellent education, of which his talents had enabled him 
 to make the best use. He was also prudent and just, consulted 
 the interests of his people, and endeavoured, as far as he could, 
 to repress those evils, which had grown up through the partial 
 government of Robert, Duke of Albany, the rule of the feeble 
 and slothful Duke Murdac, and the vicious and violent conduct 
 of his sons. 
 
 The first vengeance of the laws fell upon Murdac, who, 
 with his two sons, was tried, and condemned at Stirling for 
 abuse of the King's authority, committed while Murdac was 
 Regent They were beheaded at the little eminence at Stir- 
 ling, which is still shown on the Castle HilL The 
 R e g eQ t, from that elevated spot, might have a distant 
 view of the magnificent castle of Doune, which he had 
 built for his residence ; and the sons had ample reason to regret 
 their contempt of their father's authority, and to judge the truth 
 of his words, when he said he would bring in one who would 
 rule them all. 
 
 James afterwards turned his cares to the Highlands, which 
 were in a state of terrible confusion. He marched into those 
 disturbed districts with a strong army, and seized upon more 
 thnu forty of the chiefs, by whom these broils and quarrels 
 were countenanced, put many of them to death, and obliged 
 others to find security that they would be quiet in future. 
 Alaater MacDonald, Lord of the Isles, after more than a year's
 
 1424-31 STATE OF HIGHLANDS 163 
 
 captivity, and his mother retained in vain as a hostage for his 
 fidelity, endeavoured to oppose the royal authority ; but the 
 measures taken against him by James reduced his power so 
 much, that he was at last obliged to submit to the King's 
 mercy. For this purpose the humbled chief came to Edin- 
 burgh secretly, and suddenly appeared in the Cathedral Church, 
 where the King was employed in his devotions upon Easter- 
 day. He appeared without bonnet, armour, or ornaments, 
 with his legs and arms bare, and his body only covered with a 
 plaid. In this condition he delivered himself up to the King's 
 pleasure ; and holding a naked sword in his hand by the point, 
 he offered the hilt to the King, in token of unreserved sub- 
 mission. James forgave him his repeated offences, at the 
 intercession of the Queen and nobles present, but he detained 
 him a prisoner in the strong castle of Tantallon, in East 
 Lothian. Yet, after this submission of their principal 
 chief, the West Highlanders and people of the Isles 
 again revolted, under the command of Donald Balloch, the kins- 
 man of Alaster, who landed on the mainland with a considerable 
 force, and defeated the Earls of Mar and of Caithness with 
 great slaughter ; but when he heard that James was coming 
 against him, Donald thought it best to retreat to Ireland. 
 James put to death many of his followers. Donald himself was 
 afterwards killed in Ireland, and his head sent to the King. 
 
 There is another story, which -will show the cruelty and 
 ferocity of these Highland robbers. Another MacDonald, 
 head of a band in Ross -shire, had plundered a poor widow 
 woman of two of her cows, and who, in her anger, exclaimed 
 repeatedly that she would never wear shoes again till she had 
 carried her complaint to the King for redress, should she travel 
 to Edinburgh to seek him. " It is false," answered the bar- 
 barian ; " I will have you shod myself before you reach the 
 court." Accordingly, he caused a smith to nail shoes to the 
 poor woman's naked feet, as if they had been those of a horse ; 
 after which he thrust her forth, wounded and bleeding, on the 
 highway. The widow, however, being a woman of high spirit, 
 was determined to keep her word ; and as soon as her wounds 
 permitted her to travel, she did actually go on foot to Edin- 
 burgh, and, throwing herself before James, acquainted him 
 with the cruelty which had been exercised on her, and in evi- 
 dence showed her feet, still seamed and scarred. James heard
 
 164 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XIX 
 
 her with that mixture of pity, kindness, and uncontrollable 
 indignation which marked his character, and, in great resent- 
 ment, caused MacDonald, and twelve of his principal followers, 
 to be seized, and to have their feet shod with iron shoes, in 
 the same manner as had been done to the widow. In this 
 condition they were exhibited to the public for three days, and 
 then executed. 
 
 Thus James I. restored a considerable degree of tranquillity 
 to the country, which he found in such a distracted state. He 
 made wise laws for regulating the commerce of the nation, both 
 at home and with other states, and strict regulations for the 
 administration of justice betwixt those who had complaints 
 against one another. 
 
 But his greatest labour, and that which he found most diffi- 
 cult to accomplish, was to diminish the power of the great 
 nobles, who ruled like so many kings, each on his own terri- 
 tory and estate, and made war on the King, or upon one 
 another, whenever it was their pleasure to do so. These dis- 
 orders he endeavoured to check, and had several of these great 
 persons brought to trial, and, upon their being found guilty, 
 deprived them of their estates. The nobles complained that this 
 was done out of spite against them, and that they were treated 
 with hardship and injustice ; and thus discontents were enter- 
 tained against this good Prince. Another cause of offence was, 
 that to maintain justice, and support the authority of the 
 throne, it was found necessary that some taxes for this purpose 
 should be raised from the subjects ; and the Scottish people 
 being poor, and totally unaccustomed to pay any such contribu- 
 tions, they imputed this odious measure to the King's avarice. 
 And thus, though King James was so well-intentioned a King, 
 and certainly the ablest who had reigned in Scotland since the 
 days of Robert Bruce, yet both the high and the low murmured 
 against him, which encouraged some wicked men amongst the 
 nobility to conspire his death. 
 
 The chief person in the plot was one Sir Robert Graham, 
 uncle to the Earl of Stratherne. He was bold and ambitious, 
 and highly offended with the King on account of an imprison- 
 ment which he had sustained by the royal command. He drew 
 into the plot the Earl of Athole, an old man of little talent, by 
 promising to make his son, Sir Robert Stewart, King of Scot- 
 land, in place of James. Others were engaged in the conspiracy
 
 1431-7 GRAHAM'S CONSPIRACY 165 
 
 from different motives. To many of their attendants they 
 pretended they only wished to carry away a lady out of the 
 court To prepare his scheme, Graham retreated into the 
 remote Highlands, and from thence sent a defiance, renouncing 
 his allegiance to the King, and threatening to put his sovereign 
 to death with his own hand. A price was set upon his head, 
 payable to any one who should deliver him up to justice \ but 
 he lay concealed in the wild mountains to prosecute his revenge 
 against James. 
 
 The Christmas preceding his murder was appointed by the 
 King for holding a feast at Perth. In his way to that town 
 he was met by a Highland woman, calling herself a prophetess. 
 She stood by the side of the ferry by which he was about to 
 travel to the north, and cried with a loud voice, " My Lord 
 the King, if you pass this water, you will never return again 
 alive." The King was struck with this for a moment, because 
 he had read in a book that a king should be slain that year in 
 Scotland ; for it often happens, that when a remarkable deed 
 is in agitation, nimours of it get abroad, and are repeated 
 under pretence of prophecies; but which are, in truth, only 
 conjectures of that which seems likely to happen. There was 
 a knight in the court, on whom the King had conferred the 
 name of the King of Love, to whom the King said in jest, 
 " There is a prophecy that a king shall be killed in Scotland 
 this year ; now, Sir Alexander, that must concern either you 
 or me, since we two are the only kings in Scotland." Other 
 circumstances occurred, which might have prevented the good 
 King's murder, but none of them were attended to. The 
 King, while at Perth, took up his residence in an abbey of 
 Black Friars, there being no castle or palace in the town con- 
 venient for his residence ; and this made the execution of the 
 conspiracy more easy, as his guards, and the officers of his 
 household, were quartered among the citizens. 
 
 The day had been spent by the King in sport and feasting, 
 and by the conspirators in preparing for their enterprise. They 
 had destroyed the locks of the doors of the apartment, so that 
 the keys could not be turned ; and they had taken away the 
 bars with which the gates were secured, and had provided 
 planks by way of bridges, on which to cross the ditch which 
 surrounded the monastery. At length, on the 20th February 
 1437, all was prepared for carrying their treasonable purpose
 
 166 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XIX 
 
 into execution, and Graham came from his hiding-place in 
 the neighbouring mountains, with a party of nigh three hundred 
 men, and entered the gardens of the convent. 
 
 The King was in his night-gown and slippers. He had 
 passed the evening gaily with the nobles and ladies of his 
 court, in reading romances, and in singing and music, or play- 
 ing at chess and tables. The Earl of Athole, and his son Sir 
 Robert Stewart, who expected to succeed James on the throne, 
 were among the last courtiers who retired. At this time James 
 remained standing before the fire, and conversing gaily with 
 the queen and her ladies before he went to rest. The High- 
 land woman before mentioned again demanded permission to 
 speak with the King, but was refused, on account of the un- 
 tiuaeliuess of the hour. All now were ordered to withdraw. 
 
 At this moment there was a noise and clashing heard, as of 
 men in armour, and the torches in the garden cast up great 
 flashes of light against the windows. The King then recol- 
 lected his deadly enemy, Sir Robert Graham, and guessed that 
 he was coming to murder him. He called to the ladies who 
 were left in the chamber to keep the door as well as they 
 could, in order to give him time to escape. He first tried to 
 get out at the windows, but they were fast barred, and defied 
 his strength. By help of the tongs, which were in the chim- 
 ney, he raised, however, a plank of the flooring of the apart- 
 ment, and let himself down into a narrow vault beneath, 
 used as a common sewer. This vault had formerly had an 
 opening into the court of the convent, by which he might 
 have made his escape. But all things turned against the un- 
 fortunate James; for, only three days before, he had caused 
 the opening to be built up, because when he played at ball in 
 the court-yard, the ball used to roll into the vault through 
 that hole. 
 
 While the King was in this place of concealment, the con- 
 spirators were seeking him from chamber to chamber through- 
 out the convent, and, at length, came to the room where the 
 ladies were. The Queen and her women endeavoured, as well 
 as they might, to keep the door shut, and one of them, 
 Catherine Douglas; boldly thrust her own arm across the 
 door, instead of the bar, which had been taken away, as I 
 told you. But the brave lady's arm was soon broken, and the 
 traitors rushed into the room with swords and daggers drawn,
 
 1437 DEATH OF JAMES L 167 
 
 hurting and throwing down such of the women as opposed 
 them. The poor Queen stood half undressed, shrieking aloud ; 
 and one of the brutal assassins attacked, wounded, and would 
 have slain her, had it not been for a sou of Sir Robert Graham, 
 who said to him, " What would you do to the Queen 1 She is 
 but a woman Let us seek the King." 
 
 They accordingly commenced a minute search, but without 
 any success ; so they left the apartment, and sought elsewhere 
 about the monastery. In the meanwhile the King turned 
 impatient, and desired the ladies to bring sheets and draw him 
 up out of the inconvenient lurking place. In the attempt 
 Elizabeth Douglas fell down beside the King, and at this un- 
 lucky moment the conspirators returned. One of them now 
 recollected that there was such a vault, and that they had not 
 searched it. And when they tore up the plank, and saw the 
 King and the lady beneath in the vault, one of them called, 
 with savage merriment to his followers, " Sirs, I have found 
 the bride for whom we have sought and carolled all night." 
 Then, first one and then another oi the villains, brethren of 
 the name of Hall, descended into the vault, with daggers 
 drawn, to despatch the unfortunate King, who was standing 
 there in his shirt, without weapons of any kind. But James, 
 who was an active and strong man, threw them both down 
 beneath his feet, and struggled to wrest the dagger from one 
 or other of them, in which attempt his hands were severely 
 cut and mangled. The murderers also were so vigorously 
 handled, that the marks of the King's gripe were visible on 
 their throats for weeks afterwards. Then Sir Robert Graham 
 himself sprung down on the King, who finding no further 
 defence possible, asked him for mercy, and for leisure to con- 
 fess his sins to a priest. But Graham replied fiercely, " Thou 
 never hadst mercy on those of thine own blood, nor on any one 
 else, therefore thou shalt find no mercy here; and as for a 
 confessor, thou shalt have none but this sword." So speaking 
 he thrust the sword through the King's body. And yet it is 
 said, that when he saw his prince lying bleeding under his feet, 
 he was desirous to have left the enterprise unfinished ; but the 
 other conspirators called on Graham to kill the King, otherwise 
 he should himself die by their hands; upon which Graham, 
 with the two men who had descended into the vault before 
 him, fell on the unhappy prince with their daggers, and slew
 
 168 TALKS OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XIX 
 
 him by many stabs. There were sixteen wounds in his breast 
 alone. 
 
 By this time, but too late, news of this outrage had reached 
 the town, and the household servants of the King, with the 
 people inhabiting the town of Perth, were hastening to the 
 rescue, with torches and weapons. The traitors accordingly 
 caught the alarm, and retreated into the Highlands, losing in 
 their flight only one or two, taken or slain by the pursuers. 
 When they spoke about their enterprise among themselves, 
 they greatly regretted that they had not killed the Queen along 
 with her husband, fearing that she would be active and inexor- 
 able in her vengeance. 
 
 Indeed their apprehensions were justified by the event, for 
 Queen Joanna made so strict search after the villainous assas- 
 sins, that in the course of a month most of them were thrown 
 into prison, and being tried and condemned, they were put to 
 death with new and hideous tortures. The flesh of Robert 
 Stewart, and of a private chamberlain of the King, was torn 
 from their bodies with pincers ; while, even in the midst of 
 these horrible agonies, they confessed the justice of their sen- 
 tence. The Earl of Athole was beheaded, denying at his death 
 that he had consented to the conspiracy, though he admitted 
 that his son had told him of it ; to which he had replied, by 
 enjoining him to have no concern in so great a crime. Sir 
 Robert Graham, who was the person with whom the cruel 
 scheme had origin, spoke in defence of it to the last. He had 
 a right to slay the King, he said, for he had renounced his 
 allegiance, and declared war against him ; and he expressed his 
 belief, that his memory would be honoured for putting to death 
 so cruel a tyrant. He was tortured in the most dreadful manner 
 before his final execution, and, whilst he was yet living, his son 
 was slain before his eyes. 
 
 Notwithstanding the greatness of their crime, it was barbar- 
 ous cruelty to torture these wretched murderers in the manner 
 we have mentioned, and the historian says justly, that it was 
 a cruel deed cruelly revenged. But the people were much 
 incensed against them ; for, although they had murmured 
 against King James while he lived, yet the dismal manner of 
 his death, and the general feeling that his intentions towards 
 his people were kind and just, caused him to be much regretted. 
 He had also many popular qualities. His face was handsome,
 
 1437 CHARACTER OF JAMES L 169 
 
 and his person strong and active. His mind was well cultivated 
 with ornamental and elegant accomplishments, as well as 
 stored with useful information. He understood music and 
 poetry, and wrote verses, both serious and comic. Two of his 
 compositions are still preserved, and read with interest and 
 entertainment by those who understand the ancient language 
 in which they are written. One of these is called " The King's 
 Quhair," that is, the King's Book. It is a love poem, com- 
 posed when he was a prisoner in England, and addressed to the 
 Princess Joanna of Somerset, whom he afterwards married. 
 The other is a comic poem, called "Christ's Kirk on the 
 Green," in which the author gives an account of a merry- 
 making of the country people, held for the purpose of sport, 
 where they danced, revelled, drank, and finally quarrelled and 
 fought. There is much humour shown in this piece, though 
 one would think the subject a strange one for a king to write 
 upon. He particularly ridicules the Scots for want of acquaint- 
 ance with archery. One man breaks his bow, another shoots 
 his arrow wide of the mark, a third hits the man's body at 
 whom he took aim, but with so little effect that he cannot 
 pierce his leathern doublet. There is a meaning in this raillery. 
 James I., seeing the advantage which the English possessed by 
 their archery, was desirous to introduce that exercise more 
 generally into Scotland, and ordered regular meetings to be 
 held for this purpose. Perhaps he might hope to enforce these 
 orders, by employing a little wholesome raillery on the awkward- 
 ness of the Scottish bowmen. 
 
 On the whole, James I. was much and deservedly lamented. 
 'The murderer Graham was so far from being remembered with 
 honour, as he had expected, for the assassination which he had 
 committed, that his memory was execrated in a popular rhyme, 
 then generally current : 
 
 ' ' Robert Graham, 
 That slew our king, 
 God give him shame ! "
 
 170 ^ALES OP A GRANDFATHER CHAP, xx 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 Reign of Jama 11. Murder of the young Earl of Douglas Battle of 
 Sark The Douglases Tournament, at Stirling 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Henry VI. 
 France : Charles VII. 
 
 14371449 
 
 WHEN James I. was murdered, his son and heir, James II., 
 was only six years old ; so that Scotland was once more 
 plunged into all the discord and confusions of a regency, 
 which were sure to reach their height in a country where 
 even the undisputed sway of a sovereign of mature age was 
 not held in due respect, and was often disturbed by treason 
 and rebellion. 
 
 The affairs of the kingdom, during the minority of James 
 II., were chiefly managed by two statesmen, who seem to have 
 been nieu of considerable personal talent, but very little prin- 
 ciple or integrity. Sir Alexander Livingston was guardian 
 of the King's person; Sir William Crichton was Chancellor 
 of the kingdom. They debated betwixt themselves the degree 
 of authority attached to their respective offices, and at once 
 engaged in quarrels with each other, and with one who was 
 more powerful than either of them the great Earl of Douglas. 
 
 That mighty house was now at the highest pitch of its great- 
 ness. The Earl possessed Galloway, Annandale, and other ex- 
 tensive properties in the south of Scotland, where almost all the 
 inferior nobility and gentry acknowledged him as their patron 
 and lord. Thus the Douglases had at their disposal that part 
 of Scotland which, from its constant wars with England, was 
 most disciplined and accustomed to arms. They possessed the 
 duchy of Touraine and lordship of Longueville in France, and 
 they were connected by intermarriage with the Scottish royal 
 family. 
 
 The Douglases were not only powerful from the extent of 
 lands and territories, but also from the possession of great 
 military talents, which seemed to pass from father to son, and 
 occasioned a proverb, still remembered in Scotland
 
 1437-40 JAMES II. 171 
 
 "So many, so good, as of the Douglases have been, 
 Of one sirname in Scotland never yet were seen." 
 
 Unfortunately their power, courage, and military skill, 
 were attended with arrogance and ambition, and the Douglases 
 seemed to have claimed to themselves the rank and authority 
 of sovereign princes, independent of the laws of the country, 
 and of the allegiance due to the monarch. It was a common 
 thing for them to ride with a retinue of a thousand horse ; 
 and as Archibald, the Earl of Douglas of the time, rendered 
 but an imperfect allegiance even to the severe rule of James I., 
 it might be imagined that his power could not be easily re- 
 strained by such men as Crichton and Livingston great, 
 indeed, through the high offices which they held, but otherwise 
 of a degree far inferior to that of Douglas. 
 
 But when this powerful nobleman died, in 1439, and was 
 succeeded by his son William, a youth of only sixteen years 
 old, the wily Crichton began to spy an occasion to crush the 
 Douglases, as he hoped, for ever, by the destruction of the 
 youthful earl and his brother, and for abating, by this cruel 
 and unmerited punishment, the power and pride of this great 
 family. Crichton proposed to Livingston to join him in this 
 meditated treachery; and, though enemies to each other, the 
 guardian of the King and the Chancellor of the kingdom united 
 in the vile project of cutting off two boys, whose age alone 
 showed their innocence of the guilt charged upon them. For 
 this purpose flattery and fair words were used to induce the 
 young Earl, and his brother David, with some of their nearest 
 friends, to come to court, where it was pretended that they 
 would be suitable companions and intimates for the young 
 King. An old adherent of the family greatly dissuaded the 
 Earl from accepting this invitation, and exhorted him, if he 
 went to Edinburgh in person, to leave at least his brother 
 David behind him. But the unhappy youth, thinking that no 
 treachery was intended, could not be diverted from the fatal 
 journey. 
 
 The Chancellor Crichton received the Earl of Douglas and 
 his brother on their journey, at his own castle of Crichton, 
 and with the utmost appearance of hospitality and kindness. 
 After remaining a day or two at this place, the two brothers 
 were inveigled to Edinburgh Castle, and introduced to the 
 young King, who, not knowing the further purpose of his
 
 172 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XX 
 
 guardians, received them with affability, and seemed delighted 
 with the prospect of enjoying their society. 
 
 On a sudden the scene began to change. At an entertain- 
 ment which was served up to the Earl and his brother, the head 
 of a black bull was placed on the table. The Douglases knew 
 this, according to a custom which prevailed in Scotland, to be 
 the sign of death, and leaped from the table in great dismay. 
 But they were seized by armed men who entered the apart- 
 ment. They underwent a mock trial, in which all the inso- 
 lences of their ancestors were charged against them, and were 
 condemned to immediate execution. The young King wept, 
 and implored Livingston and Crichton to show mercy to the 
 young noblemen, but in vain. These cruel men only reproved 
 him for weeping at the death of those whom they called his 
 enemies. The brothers were led out to the court of the castle, 
 and beheaded without delay. Malcolm Fleming of Cumber- 
 nauld, a faithful adherent of their house, shared the same fate. 
 
 This barbarous proceeding was as unwise as it was unjust 
 It did not reduce the power of the Douglases, but only raised 
 general detestation against those who managed the affairs of 
 James II. A fat, quiet, peaceable person, called James the 
 Gross, indolent from habit of body and temper of mind, next 
 became Earl of Douglas, which was probably the reason that 
 no public commotion immediately attended on the murder of 
 the hapless brothers. But this corpulent dignitary lived only 
 two years, and was in his turn succeeded by his son William, 
 who was as active and turbulent as any of his ambitious pre- 
 decessors, and engaged in various civil broils for the purpose 
 of revenging the death of his kinsmen. 
 
 James the Second, in the meanwhile, came to man's estate, 
 and entered on the management of public affairs. He was a 
 handsome man, but his countenance was marked on one side 
 with a broad red spot, which gained him the surname of James 
 with the Fiery Face. They might have called him James 
 with the fiery temper, in like manner ; for, with many good 
 qualities, he had a hot and impetuous disposition, of which we 
 shall presently see a remarkable instance. 
 
 William, who had succeeded to the earldom of Douglas, was 
 enormously wealthy and powerful The family had gradually 
 added to their original patrimony the lordship of Galloway, the 
 lordship of Bothwell, the dukedom of Touraine, and lordship
 
 1440-8 BATTLE OF SARK 173 
 
 of Longueville, hi France, the lordship of Annandale, and the 
 earldom of Wigtown. So that, in personal wealth and power, 
 the Earl of Douglas not only approached to, but greatly ex- 
 ceeded the King himself. The Douglases, however, though 
 ambitious and unruly subjects in time of peace, were always 
 gallant defenders of the liberties of Scotland during the time 
 of war ; and if they were sometimes formidable to their own 
 sovereigns, they were not less so to their English enemies. 
 
 In 1448 war broke out betwixt England and Scotland, and 
 the incursions on both sides became severe and destructive. 
 The English, under young Percy, destroyed Dumfries, and in 
 return, the Scots, led by Lord Balveny, the youngest brother 
 of Douglas, burnt the town of Alnwick. The Lord Percy of 
 Northumberland, with the Earl of Huntingdon, advanced into 
 Scotland with an army, said by the French historians to 
 amount to fifteen thousand men. The Earl of Douglas, to 
 whom the King had intrusted the defence of the frontiers, 
 met him with a much inferior force, defeated the invaders, and 
 made their leaders prisoners. 
 
 Incensed at this defeat, the English assembled an army of 
 fifty thousand men, under the command of the Earl of Nor- 
 thumberland, who had under him a celebrated general, called 
 Sir Magnus Redmain, 1 long governor of the town of Berwick ; 
 Sir John Pennington, ancestor of the family of Muncaster, and 
 other leaders of high reputation. The task of encountering 
 this mighty host fell upon Hugh, Earl of Ormond, brother 
 also of the Earl of Douglas, who assembled an army of thirty 
 thousand men, and marched to meet the invaders. 
 
 The English had entered the Scottish border, and advanced 
 beyond the small river Sark, when the armies came in presence 
 of each other. The English began the battle, as usual, with a 
 fatal discharge of arrows. But William Wallace of Craigie, 
 well worthy of the heroic name he bore, called out to the left 
 wing of the Scots, which he commanded, " Why stand ye still, 
 to be shot from a distance ? Follow me, and we shall soon 
 come to handstrokes." Accordingly, they rushed furiously 
 against the right wing of the English, who, commanded by 
 
 1 " He was remarkable by his long and red beard, aud was therefore 
 called by the English ' Magnus Red-beard,' and by the Scots in derision, 
 ' Magnus with the red mane, ' as though his beard had been a horse-mane." 
 GODSOBOFT.
 
 1 74 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XX 
 
 Sir Magnus Redmain, advanced boldly to meet them. They 
 encountered with great fury, and both leaders fell, Magnus 
 Redmain being slain on the spot, and the Knight of Craigie- 
 Wallace mortally wounded. The English, disconcerted by 
 the loss of their great champion, Magnus, at length gave way. 
 The Scots pressed furiously upon them, and as the little river 
 Sark, which the English had passed at low water, was now filled 
 by the advancing tide, many of the fugitives lost their lives. 
 The victory, together with the spoils of the field, remained in 
 possession of the Scots. The Earl of Northumberland escaped 
 with difficulty, through the gallantry of one of his sons, who 
 was made prisoner in covering his father's retreat. 
 
 The King, much pleased with this victory, gave great praise 
 to the Earl of Douglas, and continued to employ his services 
 as lieutenant-general of the kingdom. 
 
 This martial family of Douglas were as remarkable for the 
 address with which they sustained the honour of their country 
 in the tournaments and military sports of the age as in the 
 field of battle. In 1449 a grand combat took place betwixt 
 three renowned champions of Flanders, namely, Jacques de 
 Lalain, Simon de Lalain, and Herve' Meriadet, and three 
 Scottish knights, namely, James, brother of the Earl of Douglas, 
 another James Douglas, brother to the Lord of Lochleven, and 
 Sir John Ross of Halket They fought in the presence of the 
 King at Stirling, with lance, battle-axe, sword, and dagger. 
 The Earl of Douglas himself attended his brother and kinsman 
 with five thousand followers. The combat was to be waged to 
 extremity ; that is, the persons engaged were to kill each other 
 if they could, although there was no personal enmity betwixt 
 them, but, on the contrary, much mutual esteem and good-will. 
 They only fought to show which of them was the bravest, and 
 most skilful in the use of arms. 
 
 There was a space under the castle rock at Stirling which 
 was used for such purposes. It was surrounded with a strong 
 enclosure of wooden pales, and rich tents were pitched at each 
 end for the convenience of the champions putting on their 
 armour. Galleries were erected for the accommodation of the 
 King and his nobles, while the ladies of the court in great 
 numbers, and dressed as if for a theatre or ball-room, occupied 
 a crag which commanded a view of the lists, still called the 
 Ladies' Rock.
 
 1448-9 POWER OF DOUGLASES 175 
 
 The combatants appeared at first in rich velvet dresses, and 
 after having made their dutiful obeisances to the King, retired 
 to their pavilions. They then sallied out in complete armour, 
 and were knighted by the King. James Douglas and Jaques 
 de Lalain rushed upon each other, and fought till all their 
 weapons were broken, saving Douglas's dagger. The Flemish 
 knight closing with his antagonist, and seizing his arm, Douglas 
 could not strike, but they continued to wrestle fiercely together. 
 The fight was also equal betwixt Simon de Lalain and Sir 
 John Ross ; they were neither of them skilful in warding 
 blows, but struck at each other with great fury, till armour 
 and weapons gave way, without either champion obtaining the 
 advantage. James Douglas of Lochleven was less fortunate ; 
 Meriadet parried a thrust of the Scotsman's lance, and before 
 Douglas could get his axe in hand, his antagonist struck him 
 to the ground. Douglas, however, instantly sprung to his feet 
 and renewed the conflict. But Meriadet, one of the most skil- 
 ful arid redoubted champions of his time, struck his antagonist 
 a second time to the earth ; and then, as the combat had become 
 unequal, the King cast down his warder or truncheon, as a 
 signal that the battle should cease. All the parties were 
 highly praised for their valour, and nobly entertained by the 
 King of Scotland. 
 
 Thus you see how gallantly the Douglases behaved them- 
 selves, both in war and in the military exercises of the time. 
 It was unhappy for the country and themselves that their am- 
 bition and insubordination were at least equal to their courage 
 and talents. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 Reign of James II. The Wars with the Douglases, and tht 
 King's Death 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Henry VI. 
 France: Charles VII. 
 
 1449 1460 
 
 WE mentioned that James II., in the early part of his reign, 
 conferred on the Earl of Douglas the important post of lieu-
 
 176 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXI 
 
 tenant-general of Scotland. But that ambitious nobleman was 
 soon disposed to extend his authority to independent power, 
 and the King found it necessary to take from him the danger- 
 ous office with which he had entrusted him. Douglas retired 
 to his own castle meditating revenge ; whilst the King, on the 
 other hand, looked around him for some fitting opportunity of 
 diminishing the power of so formidable a rival 
 
 Douglas was not long of showing his total contempt of the 
 King's authority, and his power of acting for himself One of 
 his friends and followers, named Auchinleck, had been slain 
 by the Lord Colville. The criminal certainly deserved punish- 
 ment, but it ought to have been inflicted by the regular magis- 
 trates of the crown, not by the arbitrary pleasure of a private 
 baron, however great and powerful Douglas, however, took 
 up the matter as a wrong done to himself, and revenged it by 
 his own authority. He marched a large body of his forces 
 against the Lord Colville, stormed his castle, and put every 
 person within it to death. The King was unable to avenge 
 this insult to his authority. 
 
 In like manner, Douglas connived at and encouraged some 
 of his followers in Annandale to ravage and plunder the lands 
 of Sir John Herries, a person of that country, eminently at- 
 tached to the King. Herries, a man of high spirit and con- 
 siderable power, retaliated, by wasting the lands of those who 
 had thus injured him. He was defeated and made prisoner by 
 Douglas, who caused him to be executed, although 
 the King sent a positive order, enjoining him to for- 
 bear any injury to Herries's person. Soon after this, another 
 audacious transaction occurred in the murder of Sir John 
 Sandilands of Calder, a kinsman of the King, by Sir Patrick 
 Thornton, a dependent of the house of Douglas ; along with 
 them were slain two knights, Sir James and Sir Allan Stewart, 
 both of whom enjoyed the friendship and intimacy of the 
 sovereign. 
 
 But a still more flagrant breach of law, and violation of all 
 
 respect to the King's authority, happened in the case 
 
 of Maclellan, the tutor, or guardian of the young lord 
 
 of Bomby, ancestor of the Earls of Kirkcudbright. This was 
 
 one of the few men of consequence in Galloway, who, defying 
 
 the threats of the Earl of Douglas, had refused to join with 
 
 him against the King. The Earl, incensed at bis opposition,
 
 1449-52 
 
 THE DOUGLASES 177 
 
 suddenly assaulted his castle, made him prisoner, and carried 
 him to the strong fortress of Thrieve, in Galloway, situated 
 on an island in the river Dee. The King took a particular 
 interest in Maclellan's fate, the rather that he was petitioned 
 to interfere in his favour by a personal favourite of his own. 
 This was Sir Patrick Gray, the commander of the royal guard, 
 a gentleman much in James's confidence, and constantly attend- 
 ing on his person, and who was Maclellan's near relative, 
 being his uncle on the mother's side. In order to prevent 
 Maclellan from sharing the fate of Colville and Herries, the 
 King wrote a letter to the Earl of Douglas, entreating as a 
 favour, rather than urging as a command, that he would deliver 
 the person of the Tutor of Bomby, as Maclellan was usually 
 entitled, into the hands of his relative, Sir Patrick Gray. 
 
 Sir Patrick himself went with the letter to the castle of 
 Thrieve. Douglas received him just as he had arisen from 
 dinner, and, with much apparent civility, declined to speak 
 with Gray, on the occasion of his coming, until Sir Patrick 
 also had dined, saying, "It was ill talking between a full 
 man and a fasting." But this courtesy was only a pretence 
 to gain time to do a very cruel and lawless action. Guessing 
 that Sir Patrick Gray's visit respected the life of Maclellan, 
 he resolved to hasten his execution before opening the King's 
 letter. Thus, while he was feasting Sir Patrick with every 
 appearance of hospitality, he caused his unhappy kinsman to 
 be led out, and beheaded in the court-yard of the castle. 
 
 When dinner was over, Gray presented the King's letter, 
 which Douglas received and read over with every testimony 
 of profound respect. He then thanked Sir Patrick for the 
 trouble he had taken in bringing him so gracious a letter from 
 his sovereign, especially considering he was not at present on 
 good terms with his Majesty. " And," he added, the King's 
 demand shall instantly be granted, the rather for your sake." 
 The Earl then took Sir Patrick by the hand, and led him to 
 the castle yard, where the body of Maclellan was still lying. 
 
 " Sir Patrick," said he, as his servants removed the bloody 
 cloth which covered the body, "you have come a little too 
 late. There lies your sister's son but he wants the head. 
 The body is, however, at your service." 
 
 " My lord," said Gray, suppressing his indignation, " if you 
 have taken his head, you may dispose of the body as you will" 
 
 12
 
 178 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXI 
 
 But, when he had mounted his horse, which he instantly 
 called for, his resentment broke out, in spite of the dangerous 
 situation in which he was placed : 
 
 " My lord," said he, " if I live, you shall bitterly pay for 
 this day's work." 
 
 So saving, he turned his horse and galloped off 
 
 " To horse, and chase him ! " said Douglas ; and if Gray 
 had not been well mounted, he would, in all probability, have 
 shared the fate of his nephew. He was closely pursued till 
 near Edinburgh, a space of fifty or sixty miles. 
 
 Besides these daring and open instances of contempt of the 
 King's authority, Douglas entered into such alliances as plainly 
 showed his determination to destroy entirely the royal govern- 
 ment. He formed a league with the Earl of Crawford, called 
 Earl Beardie, and sometimes, from the ferocity of his temper, 
 the Tiger-Earl, who had great power in the counties of Angus, 
 Perth, and Kincardine, and with the Earl of Ross, who pos- 
 sessed extensive and almost royal authority in the north of 
 Scotland, by which these three powerful earls agreed that they 
 should take each other's part in every quarrel, and against 
 every man, the King himself not excepted. 
 
 James then plainly saw that some strong measures must be 
 taken, yet it was not easy to determine what was to be done. 
 The league between the three earls enabled them, if open war 
 was attempted, to assemble a force superior to that of the 
 crown. The King, therefore, dissembled his resentment, and, 
 under pretext of desiring an amicable conference 
 and reconciliation, requested Douglas to come to the 
 royal court at Stirling. The haughty Earl hesitated 
 not to accept of this invitation, but before he actually did so, 
 he demanded and obtained a protection, or safe conduct, under 
 the great seal, pledging the King's promise that he should be 
 permitted to come to the court and to return in safety. And 
 the Earl was more confirmed in his purpose of waiting on the 
 King, because he was given to understand that the Chancellor 
 Crichton had retired from court in some disgrace ; so that he 
 imagined himself secure from the plots of that great enemy of 
 his family. 
 
 Thus protected, as he thought, against personal danger, 
 Douglas came to Stirling in the end of February 1452, where 
 he found the King lodged in the castle of that place, which is
 
 145* THE DOUGLASES 179 
 
 situated upon a rock rising abruptly from the plain, at the upper 
 end of the town, and ouly accessible by one gate, which is 
 strongly defended. The numerous followers of Douglas were 
 quartered in the town, but the Earl himself was admitted into 
 the castle. One of his nearest confidents and most powerful 
 allies, was James Hamilton of Cadyow, the head of the great 
 house of Hamilton. This gentleman pressed forward to follow 
 Douglas, as he entered the gate. But Livingston, who was 
 in the castle with the King, thrust back Hamilton, who was 
 his near relation, and struck him upon the face; and when 
 Hamilton, greatly incensed, rushed on him, sword in hand, he 
 repulsed him with a long lance, till the gates were shut against 
 him. Sir James Hamilton was very angry at this usage at the 
 time, but afterwards knew that Livingston acted a friendly 
 part in excluding him from the danger into which Douglas 
 was throwing himself. 
 
 The King received Douglas kindly, and, after some amicable 
 expostulation with him upon his late conduct, all seemed 
 friendship and cordiality betwixt James and his too-powerful 
 subject. By invitation of James, Doughs dined with him on 
 the day following. Supper was presented at seven o'clock, 
 and after it was over, the King having led Douglas into another 
 apartment, where only some of the privy council and of his 
 bodyguard were in attendance, he introduced the subject of 
 the Earl's bond with Ross and Crawford, and exhorted him to 
 give up the engagement, as inconsistent with his allegiance 
 and the quiet of the kingdom. Douglas declined to relinquish 
 the treaty which he had formed. The King urged him more 
 imperiously, and the Earl returned a haughty and positive 
 refusal, upbraiding the King, at the same time, with mal- 
 administration of the public affairs. Then the King burst 
 into a rage at his obstinacy, and exclaimed, " By Heaven, my 
 lord, if you will not break the league, this shall." So saying, 
 he stabbed the Earl with his dagger first in the throat, and 
 instantly after in the lower part of the body. Sir Patrick Gray, 
 who had sworn revenge on Douglas for the execution of Mac- 
 lellan, then struck the Earl on the head with a battle-axe ; and 
 others of the King's retinue showed their zeal by stabbing at 
 the dying man with their knives and daggers. He expired 
 without uttering a word, covered with twenty -six wounds. 
 The corpse did not receive any Christian burial. At least,
 
 180 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXI 
 
 about forty years since a skeleton was found buried in the 
 garden, just below the fatal window, which was, with much 
 probability, conjectured to be the remains of the Earl of 
 Douglas, who died thus strangely and unhappily by the hand 
 of his sovereign. 
 
 This was a wicked and cruel action on the King's part ; bad 
 if it were done in hasty passion, and yet worse if James 
 meditated the possibility of this violence from the beginning, 
 and had determined to use force if Douglas should not yield to 
 persuasion. The Earl had deserved punishment, perhaps even 
 that of death, for many crimes against the state ; but the King 
 ought not to have slain him without form of trial, and in his 
 own chamber, after decoying him thither under assurance that 
 his person should be safe. Yet this assassination, like that of 
 the Red Comyu at Dumfries, turned to the good of Scotland ; 
 for God, my dearest child, who is often pleased to bring good 
 out of the follies and even the crimes of men rendered the 
 death of Comyn the road to the freedom of Scotland, and that 
 of this ambitious earl the cause of the downfall of the Douglas 
 family, which had become too powerful for the peace of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 The scene, however, opened very differently from the manner 
 in which it was to end. There were in the town of Stirling 
 four brethren of the murdered Douglas, who had come to 
 wait on him to court. Upon hearing that their elder brother 
 had died in the manner I have told you, they immediately 
 acknowledged James, the eldest of the four, as his successor in 
 the earldom. They then hastened each to the county where 
 he had interest (for they were all great lords), and, collecting 
 their friends and vassals, they returned to Stirling, dragging 
 the safe- conduct, or passport, which had been granted to the 
 Earl of Douglas, at the tail of a miserable cart-jade, in order 
 to show their contempt for the King. They next, with the 
 sound of five hundred horns and trumpets, proclaimed King 
 James a false and perjured man. Afterwards they pillaged the 
 town of Stirling, and, not thinking that enough, they sent 
 back Hamilton of Cadyow to burn it to the ground. But the 
 strength of the castle defied all their efforts; and after this 
 bravado, the Douglases dispersed themselves to assemble a 
 still larger body of forces. 
 
 So many great barons were engaged in alliance with the
 
 1452 THE DOUGLASES 181 
 
 house of Douglas, that it is said to have been a question in the 
 King's mind whether he should abide the conflict or fly to 
 France, and leave the throne to the Earl. At this moment of 
 extreme need James found a trusty counsellor in his cousin- 
 german, Kennedy, Archbishop of St. Andrews, one of the 
 wisest men of his time. The archbishop showed his advice in 
 a sort of emblem or parable. He gave the King a bunch of 
 arrows tied together with a thong of leather, and asked him to 
 break them. The King said it was beyond his strength. " That 
 may be the case, bound together as they are," replied the 
 archbishop ; " but if you undo the strap, and take the arrows 
 one by one, you may easily break them all in succession. And 
 thus, my liege, you ought in wisdom to deal with the insurgent 
 nobility. If you attack them while they are united in one 
 mind and purpose, they will be too strong for you ; but if you 
 can, by dealing with them separately, prevail on them to aban- 
 don their union, you may as easily master them one after the 
 other, as you can break these arrows if you take each singly." 
 
 Acting upon this principle, the King made private represent- 
 ations to several of the nobility, to whom his agents found 
 access, showing them that the rebellion of the Douglases 
 would, if successful, render that family superior to all others in 
 Scotland, and sink the rest of the peers into men of little 
 consequence. Large gifts of lands, treasures, and honours, were 
 liberally promised to those who, in this moment of extremity, 
 should desert the Douglases and join the King's party. These 
 large promises, and the secret dread of the great predominance 
 of the Douglas family, drew to the King's side many of the 
 nobles who had hitherto wavered betwixt their allegiance and 
 their fear of the Earl. 
 
 Among these, the most distinguished was the Earl of Angus, 
 who, although himself a Douglas, being a younger branch of 
 that family, joined on this memorable occasion with the King 
 against his kinsman, and gave rise to the saying that, "the 
 Red Douglas (such was the complexion of the Angus family) 
 had put down the black." 
 
 The great family of Gordon also declaring for the King, 
 their chief, the Earl of Huntly, collected an army in the north, 
 and marched south as far as Brechin to support the royal 
 authority. Here he was encountered by the Tiger -Earl of 
 Crawford, who had taken arms for the Douglas party, according
 
 182 TALES OP A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXI 
 
 to the fatal bond which had cost the Earl William his life. 
 One of the chief leaders in Crawford's army was John Collasse 
 of Bonnymoon (or Balnamoon), who commanded a gallant body 
 of men, armed with billa and battle-axes, on whom the Earl 
 greatly relied. But before the action, this John Collasse had 
 asked Crawford to grant him certain lands, that lay convenient 
 for him, and near his house, which the Earl refused to do. 
 Collasse, incensed at the refusal, took an opportunity, when 
 the battle was at the closest, to withdraw from the conflict ; 
 upon which Crawford's men, who had been on the point of 
 
 gaining the victory, lost heart, and were defeated. 
 18 us ay Other battles were fought in different parts of 
 
 Scotland between the Douglases and their allies, 
 and those noblemen and gentlemen who favoured the King. 
 Much blood was spilt, and great mischief done to the country. 
 Among other instances of the desolation of these civil wars, the 
 Earl of Huntly burned one half of the town of Elgin, being 
 that part which inclined to the Douglases, while he left standing 
 the opposite part of the same street, which was inhabited by 
 citizens attached to his own family. Hence the proverb, when a 
 thing is imperfectly finished, that it is "Half done, as Elgin 
 was burned." 
 
 Huntly, however, was afterwards surprised, and lost a 
 considerable number of his followers in a morass, called 
 Dunkinty, where they were attacked by Douglas, Earl of 
 Murray. This gave rise to a jeering song, which ran thus : 
 
 "Where did you leave your men, 
 
 Thou Gordon so gay ? 
 In the bog of Dunkinty, 
 Mowing the hay. " 
 
 In this period of calamity, famine and pestilence came to 
 add to the desolation of the country, wasted by a civil war, 
 which occasioned skirmishes, conflagrations, and slaughters, 
 almost in every province of Scotland. ' 
 
 The royal party at length began to gain ground; for the 
 Earl of Douglas seems to have been a man of less action and 
 decision than was usual with those of his name and family. 
 
 The Earl of Crawford was one of those who first deserted 
 him, and applied to the King for forgiveness and restoration to 
 favour. He appeared before James in the most humble guise,
 
 14524 THE DOUGLASES 183 
 
 in poor apparel, bareheaded and barefooted, like a condemned 
 criminal ; and throwing himself at the King's feet, he confessed 
 his treasons, and entreated the royal mercy, on account of the 
 loyalty of his ancestors and the sincerity of his repentance. 
 The King, though he had many subjects of complaint against 
 this powerful lord, and notwithstanding he had made a vow to 
 destroy the Earl's castle of Finhaven, and to make the highest 
 stone the lowest, nevertheless granted him a full pardon, and 
 made him a visit at Finhaven, where he accomplished his vow, 
 by getting to the top of the battlements, and throwing a small 
 stone, which was lying loose there, down into the moat ; thus, 
 in one sense, making the highest stone in the house the lowest, 
 though not by the demolition of the place. By this clemency 
 the minds of the hostile nobles were conciliated, and many 
 began to enter into terms of submission. 
 
 But the power of the Douglases remained still so great 
 that there appeared little hope of the struggle being l 
 ended without a desperate battle. At length such an 
 event seemed near approaching. The Earls of Orkney and 
 Angus, acting for the King, had besieged Abercorn, a strong 
 castle on the Firth of Forth, belonging to the Earl of Douglas. 
 Douglas collected the whole strength which his family and 
 allies could raise, amounting, it is said, to nearly forty thousand 
 men, with which he advanced to raise the siege. The King, 
 on the other hand, having assembled the whole forces of the 
 north of Scotland, marched to meet him, at the head of an 
 army somewhat superior in numbers to that of the Earl, but 
 inferior in military discipline. Thus everything seemed to 
 render a combat inevitable, the issue of which must have 
 shown whether James Stewart or James Douglas was to wear 
 the crown of Scotland. The small river of Carron divided 
 the two armies. 
 
 But the intrigues of the Archbishop of St. Andrews had 
 made a powerful impression upon many of the nobles who 
 acted with Douglas, and there was a party among his followers 
 who obeyed him more from fear than affection. Others, seeing 
 a certain degree of hesitation in the Earl's resolutions, and 
 a want of decision in his actions, began to doubt whether he 
 was a leader fit to conduct so perilous an enterprise. Amongst 
 these last was Sir James Hamilton of Cadyow, already men- 
 tioned, who commanded in Douglas's army three hundred
 
 184 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXI 
 
 horse, and as many infantry, all men of tried discipline and 
 courage. The Archbishop Kennedy was Hamilton's kinsman, 
 and took advantage of their relationship to send a secret mes- 
 senger to inform him that the King was well disposed to 
 pardon his rebellion, and to show him great favour, provided 
 that he would, at that critical moment, set an example to the 
 insurgent nobility by renouncing the cause of Douglas, and 
 returning to the King's obedience. These arguments made 
 considerable impression on Hamilton, who, nevertheless, having 
 been long the follower of the Earl, was loath to desert his old 
 friend in such an extremity. 
 
 On the next morning after this secret conference, the King 
 sent a herald to the camp of Douglas, charging the Earl to dis- 
 perse his followers, on pain that he and his accomplices should be 
 proclaimed traitors, but at the same time promising forgiveness 
 and rewards to all who should leave his standard. Douglas 
 made a mock of this summons ; and sounding his trumpets, 
 and placing his men in order, marched stoutly forward to 
 encounter the King's army, who on their side left their camp 
 and advanced with displayed banners, as if to instant battle. 
 It seems, however, that the message of the herald had made 
 some impression on the followers of Douglas, and perhaps on the 
 Earl himself, by rendering him doubtful of their adherence. 
 He saw, or thought he saw, that his troops were discour- 
 aged, and led them back into his camp, hoping to inspire 
 them with more confidence and zeal. But the movement had 
 a different effect ; for no sooner had the Earl returned to his 
 tent, than Sir James Hamilton came to expostulate with him, 
 and to require him to say, whether he meant to fight or not, 
 assuring him that every delay was in favour of the King, and 
 that the longer the Earl put off the day of battle, the fewer 
 men he would have to fight it with. Douglas answered con- 
 temptuously to Hamilton, " That if he was afraid to stay, he 
 was welcome to go home." Hamilton took the Earl at his 
 word, and, leaving the camp of Douglas, went over to the King 
 that very night. 
 
 The example was so generally followed, that the army of 
 Douglas seemed suddenly to disperse, like a dissolving snow- 
 ball ; and in the morning not a hundred men were left in his 
 silent and deserted camp, excepting his own immediate de- 
 pendents. He was obliged to fly to the West Border, where
 
 I 4 54-5 THE DOUGLASES 185 
 
 his brothers and followers sustained a severe defeat from 
 the Scotts and other Borderers, near a place called 
 Arkinholme, in the valley of Esk. Archibald Douglas, 
 Earl of Murray, one of the Earl's brothers, falling in 
 this battle, his head was cut off, and sent to the King, then 
 before Abercorn ; another, Hugh, Earl of Ormond, was 
 wounded and made prisoner, and immediately executed, not- 
 withstanding his services at the battle of Sark. John, Lord 
 Balvenie, the third brother, escaped into England, where the 
 Earl also found a retreat. Thus the power of this great and 
 predominant family, which seemed to stand so fair for possess- 
 ing the crown, fell at length without any decisive struggle; 
 and their greatness, which had been founded upon the loyalty 
 and bravery of the Good Lord James, was destroyed by the 
 rebellious and wavering conduct of the last earl 
 
 That unfortunate nobleman remained nearly twenty years 
 in England a banished man, and was almost forgotten in his 
 own country, until the subsequent reign, when, in 1484, he 
 was defeated and made prisoner, in a small incursion which he 
 had attempted to make upon the frontiers of Annandale. He 
 surrendered to a brother of Kirkpatrick of Closeburn, who, in 
 the Earl's better days, had been his own vassal, and who shed 
 tears at seeing his old master in such a lamentable situation. 
 Kirkpatrick even proposed to set him at liberty, and fly with 
 him into England ; but Douglas rejected this offer. " I am 
 tired," he said, " of exile ; and as there is a reward offered by 
 the King for my head, I had rather it were conferred on you, 
 who were always faithful to me while I was faithful to myself, 
 than on any one else." Kirkpatrick, however, acted kindly 
 and generously. He secured the Earl in some secret abode, 
 and did not deliver him up to the King until he had a promise 
 of his life. Douglas was then ordained to be put into the 
 abbey of Lindores, to which sentence he submitted calmly, only 
 using a popular proverb, " He that cannot do better must be a 
 monk." He lived in that convent only for four years, and 
 with him, as the last of his family, expired the principal branch 
 of those tremendous Earls of Douglas. 
 
 Other Scottish families arose upon the ruins of this mighty 
 house, in consequence of the distribution made of their im- 
 mense forfeited estates, to those who had assisted the King in 
 suppressing their power. Amongst these the Earl of Angus,
 
 1 86 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXI 
 
 who, although kinsman to the Earl of Douglas, by siding with 
 the King, received by far the greater share ; to an amount, 
 indeed, which enabled this shoot, as we shall see, to pursue the 
 same ambitious course as that of their kinsfolk of the elder 
 branch, although they neither rose to such high elevation, 
 nor sunk into the same irreparable ruin, which was the lot of 
 the original family. 
 
 Hamilton also rose into power on the fall of the Douglas. 
 His opportune desertion of his kinsman at Abercorn was 
 accounted good service, and was rewarded with large grants of 
 land, and at last with the hand of the King's eldest daughter 
 in marriage. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott of Kirkurd and Buccleuch likewise ob- 
 tained great gifts of land for his clan's service and his own, at 
 the battle of Arkinholme, and began that course of greatness 
 which raised his family to the ducal dignity. 
 
 Such, my dear child, is the course of the world, in which 
 the downfall of one great man or family is the means of 
 advancing others ; as a falling tree throws its seed upon the 
 ground, and causes young plants to arise in its room. 
 
 The English did not make much war upon Scotland during 
 this reign, being engaged at home with their dreadful civil 
 quarrels of York and Lancaster. For the same reason, per- 
 haps, the Scots had the advantage in such actions as took 
 place. 
 
 Relieved from the rivalship of the Douglas, and from the 
 pressure of constant war with England, James II. governed 
 Scotland firmly. The kingdom enjoyed considerable tranquil- 
 lity during the remainder of his reign ; and his last Parliament 
 was able to recommend to him the regular and firm execution 
 of the laws, as to a prince who possessed the full means of dis- 
 charging his kingly office, without resistance from evil doers or 
 infringers of justice. This was in 1458. But only two years 
 afterwards all these fair hopes were blighted. 
 
 The strong Border castle of Roxburgh had remained in the 
 hands of the English ever since the fatal battle of Durham. 
 The King was determined to recover this bulwark of the 
 kingdom. Breaking through a truce which existed with Eng- 
 land at the time, James summoned together the full force of 
 his kingdom to accomplish this great enterprise. The nobles 
 attended in numbers, and well accompanied, at the summons
 
 1455-60 DEATH OF JAMES IL 187 
 
 of a pnnce who was always respected, and generally success- 
 ful in his military undertakings. Even Donald of the Isles 
 proved himself a loyal and submissive vassal ; and while he 
 came with a force which showed his great authority, he placed 
 it submissively at the disposal of his sovereign. His men 
 were arrayed in the Highland fashion, with shirts of mail, two- 
 handed swords, axes, and bows and arrows ; and Donald oftered, 
 when the Scots should enter England, that he would march a 
 mile in front of the King's host, and take upon himself the 
 danger of the first onset. But James's first object was the 
 siege of Roxburgh. 
 
 This strong castle was situated on an eminence near the 
 junction of the Tweed and the Teviot ; the waters of the 
 Teviot, raised by a damhead or weir, flowed round the fortress, 
 and its walls were as strong as the engineers of the time 
 could raise. On former occasions it had been taken by strata- 
 gem, but James was now to proceed by a regular siege. 
 
 With this purpose he established a battery of such large 
 clumsy cannon as were constructed at that time, upon the 
 north side of the river Tweed. The siege had lasted some 
 time, and the army began to be weary of the undertaking, 
 when they received new spirit from the arrival of the Earl of 
 Huntly with a gallant body of fresh troops. The King, out 
 of joy at these succours, commanded his artillery to fire a 
 volley upon the castle, and stood near the cannon himself, to 
 mark the effect of the shot. The great guns of that period 
 were awkwardly framed out of bars of iron, fastened together 
 by hoops of the same metal, somewhat in the same manner in 
 which barrels are now made. They were, therefore, far more 
 liable to accidents than modern cannon, which are cast in one 
 entire solid piece, and then bored hollow by a machine. One 
 of these ill-made guns burst in going off. A fragment of iron 
 broke James's thigh-bone, and killed him on the spot. An- 
 other splinter wounded the Earl of Angus. No 
 other person sustained injury, though many stood 
 around. Thus died James the Second of Scotland, 
 in the twenty-ninth year of his age, after reigning twenty- 
 four years. 
 
 This King did not possess the elegant accomplishments of 
 his father; and the manner in which he slew the Earl of 
 Douglas must be admitted as a stain upon his reputation.
 
 188 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXII 
 
 Yet he was, upon the whole, a good prince, and was greatly 
 lamented by his subjects. A thorn-tree, in the Duke of Rox- 
 burghe's park at Fleurs, still shows the spot where he died. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 Reign of James III. The Boyds Execution of the King's Favourites 
 The Homes and Hepburns Murder of the King. 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England : Henry VI., Edward IV., 
 Edward V., Richard III., Henry VII. France: Charles VII., Louis 
 XL, Charles VIII. 
 
 14601488 
 
 UPON the lamentable death of James II., the army which lay 
 before Roxburgh was greatly discouraged, and seemed about to 
 raise the siege. But Mary, the widow of their slain monarch, 
 appeared in their council of war, leading her eldest son, a child 
 of eight years old, who was the successor to the crown, and 
 spoke to them these gallant words : " Fy, my noble lords ! 
 think not now shamefully to give up an enterprise which is so 
 bravely begun, or to abandon the revenge of this unhappy acci- 
 dent which has befallen before this ill-omened castle. Forward, 
 my brave lords, and persevere in your undertaking ; and never 
 turn your backs till this siege is victoriously ended. Let it 
 not be said that such brave champions needed to hear from a 
 woman, and a widowed one, the courageous advice and comfort 
 which she ought rather to receive from you ! " The Scottish 
 nobles received this heroic address with shouts of applause, 
 and persevered in the siege of Roxburgh Castle, until the 
 garrison, receiving no relief, were obliged to surrender the place 
 through famine. The governor is stated to have been put to 
 death, and in the animosity of the Scots against everything 
 concerned with the death of their King, they levelled the walls 
 of the castle with the ground, and returned victorious from an 
 enterprise which had cost them so dear. 
 
 The minority of James III. was more prosperous than that 
 of his father and grandfather. The affairs of state were guided 
 by the experienced wisdom of Bishop Kennedy. Roxburgh 
 was, as we have said, taken and destroyed. Berwick, during
 
 1460-7 REIGN OF JAMES IIL 189 
 
 the dissensions of the civil wars of England, was surrendered 
 to the Scots ; and the dominions of the islands of Orkney and 
 Zetland, which had hitherto belonged to the Kings of Norway, 
 were acquired as the marriage portion of a Princess of Denmark 
 and Norway, who was united in marriage to the King of Scot- 
 land. 
 
 These favourable circumstances were first interrupted by the 
 death of Archbishop Kennedy ; after which event 
 one family, that of the Boyds, started into such a 
 degree of temporary power as seemed to threaten the 
 public tranquillity. The tutor of James III. was Gilbert 
 Kennedy, a wise and grave man, who continued to regulate the 
 studies of the King after the death of his brother the prelate, 
 but unadvisedly called in to his assistance Sir Alexander, the 
 brother of Lord Boyd, as one who was younger and fitter than 
 himself to teach James military exercises. By means of this 
 appointment, Sir Alexander, his brother Lord Boyd, and two 
 of his sons, became so intimate with the King that they 
 resolved to take him from under the management of Kennedy 
 entirely. The court was then residing at Linlithgow, and the 
 King, while abroad on a hunting party, was persuaded to direct 
 his horse's head to Edinburgh, instead of returning. Kennedy, 
 the tutor, hastened to oppose the King's desire, and seizing his 
 horse by the bridle, wished to lead him back to Linlithgow. 
 Alexander Boyd rushed forward, and striking with a hunting- 
 staff the old man, who had deserved better usage at his hand, 
 forced him to quit the King's rein, and accomplished his pur- 
 pose of carrying James to Edinburgh, where he entered upon 
 the administration of affairs, and having granted a solemn pardon 
 to the Boyds for whatever violence had occurred in their pro- 
 ceedings, he employed them for a time as his chief ministers 
 and favourites. Sir Thomas, one of Lord Boyd's sons, was 
 honoured with the hand ot the Princess Margaret, the King's 
 eldest sister, and was created Earl of Arran. He deserved 
 even this elevation by his personal accomplishments, if he 
 approached the character given of him by an English gentleman. 
 He is described as "the most courteous, gentle, wise, kind, 
 companionable, and bounteous Earl of Arran ; " and again, as 
 " a light, able-bodied, well-spoken man, a goodly archer, and a 
 knight most devout, most perfect, and most true to his lady." 
 
 Notwithstanding the new Earl of Arran's accomplishments,
 
 190 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXII 
 
 the sudden rise of his family was followed by as sudden a fall. 
 The King, either resenting the use which the Boyds had made 
 of his favour, or changing his opinion of them from other 
 causes, suddenly deprived the whole family of their offices, and 
 caused them to be tried for the violence committed at Linlith- 
 gow, notwithstanding the pardon which he himself had granted. 
 Sir Alexander Boyd was condemned and executed. Lord Boyd 
 and his sons escaped, and died in exile. After the death of 
 Sir Thomas (the Earl of Arran), the Princess Margaret was 
 married to the Lord Hamilton, to whom she carried the estate 
 and title of Arran. 
 
 It was after the fall of the Boyds that the King came to 
 administer the government in person, and that the defects of 
 his character began to appear. He was timorous, a great fail- 
 ing in a warlike age ; and his cowardice made him suspicious 
 of his nobility, and particularly of his two brothers. He was 
 fond of money, and therefore did not use that generosity to- 
 wards his powerful subjects which was necessary to secure their 
 attachment ; but, on the contrary, endeavoured to increase his 
 private hoards of wealth by encroaching upon the rights both 
 of clergy and laity, and thus made himself at once hated and 
 contemptible. He was a lover of the fine arts, as they are 
 called, of music and architecture; a disposition graceful in a 
 monarch, if exhibited with due regard to his dignity. But he 
 made architects and musicians his principal companions, ex- 
 cluding his nobility from the personal familiarity to which he 
 admitted those whom the haughty barons of Scotland termed 
 masons and fiddlers. Cochran, an architect, Rogers, a musician, 
 Leonard, a smith, Hommel, a tailor, and Torphichen, a fencing- 
 master, were his counsellors and companions. These habits 
 of low society excited the hatred of the nobility, who began 
 to make comparisons betwixt the King and his two brothers, 
 the Dukes of Albany and Mar, greatly to the disadvantage of 
 James. 
 
 These younger sons of James the Second were of appear- 
 ance and manners such as were then thought most suited to 
 their royal birth. This is the description of the Duke of Al- 
 bany by an ancient Scottish author : He was well proportioned, 
 and tall in stature, and comely in his countenance ; that is to 
 say, broad-faced, red-nosed, large-eared, and having a very 
 awful countenance when it pleased him to speak with those
 
 1467-74 REIGN OF JAMES III. 191 
 
 who had displeased him. Mar was of a less stern temper, and 
 gave great satisfaction to all who approached his person, by 
 the mildness and gentleness of his manners. Both princes 
 excelled in the military exercises of tilting, hunting, hawking, 
 and other personal accomplishments, for which their brother, 
 the King, was unfit, by taste, or from timidity, although they 
 were in those times reckoned indispensable to a man of rank. 
 
 Perhaps some excuse for the King's fears may be found in 
 the turbulent disposition of the Scottish nobles, who, like the 
 Douglases and Boyds, often nourished schemes of ambition, 
 which they endeavoured to gratify by exercising a control over 
 the King's person. The following incident may serve to 
 amuse you, among so many melancholy tales, and at the same 
 time to show you the manners of the Scottish kings, and the 
 fears which James entertained for the enterprises of the 
 nobility. 
 
 About the year 1474 Lord Somerville being in attendance 
 upon the King's court, James III. offered to come and visit 
 him at his castle of Cowthally, near the town of Carnwath, 
 where he then lived in all the rude hospitality of the time, for 
 which this nobleman was peculiarly remarkable. It was his 
 custom, when, being from home, he intended to return to the 
 castle with a party of guests, merely to write the words, 
 Speates and raxes ; that is, spits and ranges ; meaning by this 
 hint that there should be a great quantity of food prepared, 
 and that the spits and ranges, or framework on which they 
 turn, should be put into employment. Even the visit of the 
 King himself did not induce Lord Somerville to send any other 
 than his usual intimation; only he repeated it three times, 
 and despatched it to his castle by a special messenger. The 
 paper was delivered to the Lady Somerville, who, having been 
 lately married, was not quite accustomed to read her husband's 
 handwriting, which probably was not very good ; for in those 
 times noblemen used the sword more than the pen. So the 
 lady sent for the steward, and, after laying their heads to- 
 gether, instead of reading Speates and raxes, speates and raxes, 
 speates and raxes; they made out the writing to be Spears 
 and jacks, spears and jacks, spears and jacks. Jacks were a 
 sort of leathern doublet, covered with plates of iron, worn as 
 armour by horsemen of inferior rank. They concluded the 
 meaning of these terrible words to be, that Lord Somerville
 
 192 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXIJ 
 
 was in some distress, or engaged in some quarrel in Edinburgh, 
 and wanted assistance ; so that, instead of killing cattle and 
 preparing for a feast, they collected armed men together, and 
 got ready for a fray. A party of two hundred horsemen were 
 speedily assembled, and were trotting over the moors towards 
 Edinburgh, when they observed a large company of gentlemen 
 employed in the sport of hawking, on the side of Corsett-hill. 
 This was the King and Lord Somerville, who were on their 
 road to Cowthally, taking their sport as they went along. 
 The appearance of a numerous body of armed men soon turned 
 their game to earnest ; and the King, who saw the Lord 
 Somerville's banner at the head of the troop, concluded it was 
 some rebellious enterprise against his person, and charged the 
 baron with treason. Lord Somerville declared his innocence. 
 " Yonder," said he, " are indeed my men and my banner, but 
 I have no knowledge whatever of the cause that has brought 
 them here. But if your grace will permit me to ride forward, 
 I will soon see the cause of this disturbance. In the mean- 
 time, let my eldest son and heir remain as an hostage in your 
 grace's power, and let him lose his head if I prove false to my 
 duty." The King accordingly permitted Lord Somerville to 
 ride towards his followers, when the matter was soon ex- 
 plained by those who commanded them. The mistake waa 
 then only subject of merriment ; for the King, looking at the 
 letter, protested he himself would have read it Spears and 
 jacks, rather than Speates and raxes. When they came to 
 Cowthally the lady was much out of countenance at the mis- 
 take. But the King greatly praised her for the despatch 
 which she had used in raising men to assist her husband, and 
 said he hoped she would always have as brave a band at his 
 service when the King and kingdom required them. And thus 
 everything went happily off. 
 
 It was natural that a prince of a timid, and at the same time 
 a severe disposition, such as James III. seems to have had, 
 should see with anxiety the hold which his brothers possessed 
 over the hearts of his subjects ; and the insinuations of the un- 
 worthy familiars of his private hours turned that anxiety and 
 suspicion into deadly and implacable hatred. Various causes 
 combined to induce the mean and obscure favourites of James 
 to sow enmity betwixt him and his brothers. The Homes and 
 Hepburns, families which had risen into additional power after
 
 1474-9 REIGN OF JAMES III. 193 
 
 the fall of the Douglases, had several private disputes with 
 Albany concerning privileges and property belonging to the 
 earldom of March, which had been conferred on him by his 
 father. Albany was also Lord Warden of the east frontiers, 
 and in that capacity had restrained and disobliged those power- 
 ful clans. To be revenged, they made interest with Robert 
 Cochran, the King's principal adviser, and gave him, it is said, 
 large bribes to put Albany out of credit with the King. 
 Cochran's own interest suggested the same vile course ; for he 
 must have been sensible that Albany and Mar disapproved of 
 the King's intimacy with him and his companions. 
 
 These unworthy favourites, therefore, set themselves to fill 
 the King's mind with apprehensions of dangers which were to 
 arise to him from his brothers. They informed him that the 
 Earl of Mar had consulted witches when and how the King 
 should die, and that it had been answered that he should fall 
 by means of his nearest relations. They brought to James 
 also an astrologer, that is, a man who pretended to calculate 
 future events by the motion of the stars, who told him that 
 in Scotland a Lion should be killed by his own whelps. All 
 these things wrought on the jealous and timid disposition of 
 the King, so that he seized upon both his brethren. Albany 
 was imprisoned in the castle of Edinburgh, but Mar's fate was 
 instantly decided ; the King caused him to be murdered by 
 stifling him in a bath, or, as other historians say, by causing 
 him to be bled to death. James committed this horrid crime in 
 order to avoid dangers which were in a great measure imagin- 
 ary ; but we shall find that the death of his brother Mar 
 rather endangered than added to his safety. 
 
 Albany was in danger of the same fate, but some of his 
 friends in France or Scotland had formed a plan of rescuing 
 him. A small sloop came into the roadstead of Leith, loaded 
 with wine of Gascony, and two small barrels were sent up as 
 a present to the imprisoned prince. The guard having suffered 
 the casks to be carried to Albany's chamber, the duke, exam- 
 ining them in private, found that one of them contained a roll 
 of wax, enclosing a letter, exhorting him to make his escape, 
 and promising that the little vessel which brought the wine 
 should be ready to receive him if he could gain the waterside. 
 The letter conjured him to be speedy, as there was a purpose 
 to behead him on the day following. A coil of ropes was ajsp 
 
 13
 
 194 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXII 
 
 enclosed in the same cask, in order to enable him to effect his 
 descent from the castle wall, and the precipice upon which it 
 is built There was a faithful attendant, his chamberlain, 
 imprisoned with him in the same apartment, who promised to 
 assist his master in this perilous undertaking. The first point 
 was to secure the captain of the guard ; for which purpose 
 Albany invited that officer to sup with him, in order, as the 
 Duke pretended, to taste the good wine which had been presented 
 to him in the two casks. The captain accordingly, having 
 placed his watches where he thought there was danger, came 
 to the Duke's chamber, attended by three of his soldiers, and 
 partook of a collation. After supper, the Duke engaged him in 
 playing at tables and dice, until the captain, seated beside a 
 hot fire, and plied with wine by the chamberlain, began to 
 grow drowsy, as did his attendants, on whom the liquor had 
 not been spared. Then the Duke of Albany, a strong man 
 and desperate, leapt from the table and stabbed the captain 
 with a whinger or dagger, so that he died on the spot. The 
 like he did to two of the captain's men, and the chamberlain 
 despatched the other, and threw their bodies on the fire. This 
 was the more easily accomplished that the soldiers were intoxi- 
 cated and stupefied. They then took the keys from the captain's 
 pocket, and, getting out upon the walls, chose a retired corner, 
 out of the watchman's sight, to make their perilous descent. 
 The chamberlain tried to go down the rope first, but it was too 
 short, so that he fell and broke his thigh-bone. He then called 
 to his master to make the rope longer. Albany returned to his 
 apartment, and took the sheets from the bed, with which he 
 lengthened the rope, so that he descended the precipice in safety. 
 He then got his chamberlain on his back, and conveyed him 
 to a place of security, where he might remain concealed 
 till his hurt was cured, and went himself to the sea- 
 side, when, upon the appointed signal, a boat came ashore and 
 took him off to the vessel, in which he sailed for France. 
 
 During the night, the guards, who knew that their officer 
 was in the Duke's apartment with three men, could not but 
 suppose that all was safe ; but when daylight showed them 
 the rope hanging from the walls, they became alarmed, 
 and hastened to the Duke's lodgings. Here they found the 
 body of one man stretched near the door, and the corpses of 
 the captain and other two lying upon the fire. The King was
 
 1479-82 REIGN OF JAMES III. 195 
 
 much surprised at so strange an escape, and would give no 
 credit to it till he had examined the place with his own eyes. 
 
 The death of Mar, and the flight of Albany, increased the 
 insolence of King James's unworthy favourites. Robert 
 Cochran, the mason, rose into great power, and as every 
 man's petition to the King came through his hands, and 
 he expected and received bribes to give his countenance, he 
 amassed so much wealth, that he was able in his turn to bribe 
 the King to confer on him the earldom of Mar, with the lands 
 and revenues of the deceased prince. All men were filled with 
 indignation to see the inheritance of the murdered earl, the 
 son of the King of Scotland, conferred upon a mean upstart, 
 like this Cochran. This unworthy favourite was guilty of 
 another piece of mal-ad ministration, by mixing the silver coin 
 of the kingdom with brass and lead, and thereby decreasing 
 its real value, while orders were given by proclamation to take 
 it at the same rate as if it were composed of pure silver. The 
 people refused to sell their corn and other commodities for this 
 debased coin, which introduced great distress, confusion, and 
 scarcity. Some one told Cochran, that this money should be 
 called in, and good coin issued in its stead ; but he was so con- 
 fident of the currency of the Cochran-placks, as the people 
 called them, that he said, " The day I am hanged they may 
 be called in ; not sooner." This speech, which he made in 
 jest, proved true in reality. 
 
 In the year 1482 the disputes with England had come to 
 a great height, and Edward IV. made preparations to invade 
 Scotland, principally in the hope of recovering the town of 
 Berwick. He invited the Duke of Albany from France to 
 join him in this undertaking, promising to place him on the 
 Scottish throne instead of his brother. This was held out in 
 order to take advantage of the unpopularity of King James, 
 and the general disposition which manifested itself in Scotland 
 in favour of Albany. 
 
 But, however discontented with their sovereign, the Scot- 
 tish nation showed themselves in no way disposed to receive 
 another king from the hands of the English. The Parliament 
 assembled, and unanimously determined 011 war against Edward 
 the Robber, for so they termed the King of England. To 
 support this violent language, James ordered the whole array 
 of the kingdom, that is, all the men who were bound to dis-
 
 196 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXII 
 
 charge military service, to assemble at the Borough-moor of 
 Edinburgh, from whence they inarched to Lauder, and en- 
 camped between the river Leader and the town, to the amount 
 of fifty thousand men. But the great barons, who had there 
 assembled with their followers, were less disposed to advance 
 against the English than to correct the abuses of King 
 James's administration. 
 
 Many of the nobility and barons held a secret council in the 
 church of Lauder, where they enlarged upon the evils which 
 Scotland sustained through the insolence and corruption of 
 Cochran and his associates. While they were thus declaiming, 
 Lord Gray requested their attention to a fable. " The mice," 
 he said, " being much annoyed by the persecution of the cat, 
 resolved that a bell should be hung about puss's neck, to give 
 notice when she was coming. But though the measure was 
 agreed to in full council, it could not be carried into effect, 
 because no mouse had courage enough to undertake to tie the 
 bell to the neck of the formidable enemy." This was as much 
 as to intimate his opinion, that though the discontented nobles 
 might make bold resolutions against the King's ministers, yet 
 it would be difficult to find any one courageous enough to act 
 upon them. 
 
 Archibald, Earl of Angus, a man of gigantic strength and 
 intrepid courage, and head of that second family of Douglas 
 whom I before mentioned, started up when Gray had done 
 speaking. "I am he," he said, "who will bell the cat;" from 
 which expression he was distinguished by the name of Bell- 
 the-Cat to his dying day. 
 
 While thus engaged, a loud authoritative knocking was 
 heard at the door of the church. This announced the arrival 
 of Cochran, attended by a guard of three hundred men, attached 
 to his own person, and all gaily dressed in his livery of white, 
 with black facings, and armed with partisans. His own 
 personal appearance corresponded with this magnificent attend- 
 ance. He was attired in a riding suit of black velvet, and had 
 round his neck a fine chain of gold, whilst a bugle-horn, tipped 
 and mounted with gold, hung down by his side. His helmet 
 was borne before him, richly inlaid with the same precious 
 metal ; even his tent and tent-cords were of silk, instead of 
 ordinary materials. In this gallant guise, having learned there 
 was some council holding among the nobility, he came to see
 
 1482 REIGN OF JAMES IIL 197 
 
 what they were doing, and it was with this purpose that he 
 knocked furiously at the door of the church. Sir Robert 
 Douglas of Lochleven, who had the charge of watching the 
 door, demanded who was there. When Cochran answered, 
 " The Earl of Mar," the nobles greatly rejoiced at hearing he 
 was come, to deliver himself, as it were, into their hands. 
 
 As Cochran entered the church, Angus, to make good his 
 promise to bell the cat, met him, and /udely pulled the gold 
 chain from his neck, saying, " A halter would better become 
 him." Sir Eobert Douglas, at the same time, snatched away 
 his bugle-horn, saying, "Thou hast been a hunter of mischief 
 too long." 
 
 "Is this jest or earnest, my lords?" said Cochran, more 
 astonished than alarmed at this rude reception. 
 
 "It is sad earnest," said they, "and that thou and thy 
 accomplices shall feel ; for you have abused the King's favour 
 towards you, and now you shall have your reward according to 
 your deserts." 
 
 It does not appear that Cochran or his guards offered any 
 resistance. A part of the nobility went next to the King's 
 pavilion, and, while some engaged him in conversation, others 
 seized upon Leonard, Hommel, Torphichen, and the rest, with 
 Preston, one of the only two gentlemen amongst King James's 
 minions, and hastily condemned them to instant death, as having 
 misled the King, and misgoverned the kingdom. The only 
 person who escaped was John Ramsay of Balmain, a youth of 
 honourable birth, who clasped the King round the waist when 
 he saw the others seized upon. Him the nobles spared, in 
 respect of his youth, for he was not above sixteen years, and 
 of the King's earnest intercession in his behalf. There was a 
 loud acclamation among the troops, who contended with each 
 other in offering their tent-ropes, and the halters of their 
 horses, to be the means of executing these obnoxious ministers. 
 Cochran, who was a man of audacity, and had first attracted 
 the King's attention by his behaviour in a duel, did not lose 
 his courage, though he displayed it in an absurd manner. He 
 had the vanity to request that his hands might not be tied 
 with a hempen rope, but with a silk cord, which he offered to 
 furnish from the ropes of Ms pavilion ; but this was only teach- 
 ing his enemies how to give his feelings additional pain. They 
 told him he was but a false thief, and should die with all
 
 198 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXII 
 
 manner of shame ; and they were at pains to procure a hair- 
 tether or halter, as still more ignominious than a rope of hemp. 
 With this they hanged Cochran over the centre of the bridge 
 of Lauder (now demolished), in the middle of his companions, 
 who were suspended on each side of him. When the execution 
 was finished, the lords returned to Edinburgh, where they 
 resolved that the King should remain in the castle, under a 
 gentle and respectful degree of restraint 
 
 In the meantime the English obtained possession of Ber- 
 wick, which important place was never again recovered by the 
 Scots, though they continued to assert their claim to that 
 bulwark of the eastern Marches. The English seemed dis- 
 posed to prosecute their advantages ; but the Scottish army 
 having moved to Haddiugton to fight them, a peace was con- 
 cluded, partly by the mediation of the Duke of Albany, who 
 having seen the vanity of any hopes which the English had 
 given him, and, laying aside his views upon the crown, appeared 
 desirous to become the means of restoring peace to the 
 country. 
 
 The Duke of Albany, and the celebrated Richard, Duke of 
 Gloucester (afterwards Richard the Third), are said to have 
 negotiated the terms of peace, as well between the King and 
 his nobility as between France and England. They had a 
 meeting at Edinburgh with the council of Scottish lords who 
 had managed the affairs of the kingdom since the King's im- 
 prisonment. The council would pay no respect to the Duke 
 of Gloucester, who, as an Englishman, they justly thought, 
 had no right to interfere in the affairs of Scotland ; but to the 
 Duke of Albany they showed much reverence, requesting to 
 know what he required at their hands. 
 
 " First of all," he said, " I desire that the King, my brother, 
 be set at liberty." 
 
 " My lord," said Archibald-Bell-the-Cat, who was chancellor, 
 " that shall be presently done, and the rather that you desire 
 it. As to the person who is with you (meaning the Duke of 
 Gloucester), we know him not ; neither will we grant anything 
 at his asking. But we know you to be the King's brother, 
 and nearest heir to his Grace after his infant son. Therefore, 
 we put the King's person at your disposal, trusting that he will 
 act by your advice in future, and govern the kingdom, so as not 
 to excite the discontent of the people, or render it necessary
 
 1482-4 REIGN OF JAMES III. 199 
 
 for us, who are the nobles of Scotland, to act contrary to his 
 pleasure." 
 
 James, being thus set at liberty, became, to appearance, so 
 perfectly reconciled with his brother, the Duke of Albany, that 
 the two royal brothers used the same chamber, the same table, 
 and the same bed. While the King attended to the buildings 
 and amusements in which he took pleasure, Albany adminis- 
 tered the affairs of the kingdom, and, for some time, with 
 applause. But the ambition of his temper began again to 
 show itself; the nation became suspicious of his intimate con- 
 nection with the English, and just apprehensions were enter- 
 tained that the Duke aimed still at obtaining the crown by 
 assistance of Richard III., now King of England. The Duke 
 was, therefore, once more obliged to fly into England, where 
 he remained for some time, assisting the English against his 
 countrymen. He was present at that skirmish in 1484 where 
 the old Earl of Douglas was made prisoner, and only escaped 
 by the speed of his horse. Albany soon after retired into 
 France, where he formed a marriage with a daughter of the 
 Earl of Boulogne, by whom he had a son, John, afterwards 
 Regent of Scotland in the days of James V. Albany himself 
 was wounded severely by the splinter of a lance at one of the 
 tournaments, or tilting-matches, which I have described to you, 
 and died in consequence. The fickleness with which he changed 
 from one side to another disappointed the high ideas which 
 had been formed of his character in youth. 
 
 Freed from his brother's superintendence, the King gradu- 
 ally sunk back into those practices which had formerly cost 
 him so dear. To prevent a renewal of the force put on his 
 person, he made a rule that none should appear armed in the 
 royal presence except the King's Guard, who were placed under 
 the command of that same John Ramsay of Balmain, the only 
 one of his former favourites who had been spared by Bell-the- 
 Cat, and the other nobles, at the insurrection of Lauder bridge. 
 This gave high offence in a country where to be without arms 
 was accounted both unsafe and dishonourable. 
 
 The King's love of money also grew, as is often the case, 
 more excessive as he advanced in years. He would hardly 
 grant anything, whether as matter of favour or of right, with- 
 out receiving some gift or gratuity. By this means he accu- 
 mulated a quantity of treasure, which, considering the poverty
 
 200 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXII 
 
 of bis kingdom, is absolutely marvellous. His " black chest," 
 as his strong-box was popularly called, was brimful of gold and 
 silver coins, besides quantities of plate and jewels. But while 
 he hoarded these treasures, he was augmenting the discontent 
 of both the nobility and people ; and amid the universal sense 
 of the King's weakness, and hatred of his avarice, a general 
 rebellion was at length excited against him. 
 
 The King, among other magnificent establishments, had 
 built a great hall, and a royal chapel, within the castle of 
 Stirling, both of them specimens of finely ornamented 
 Gothic architecture. He had also established a double 
 choir of musicians and singing men in the chapel, designing that 
 one complete band should attend him wherever he went, to per- 
 form Divine service before his person, while the other, as complete 
 in every respect, should remain in daily attendance in the royal 
 chapel. 
 
 As this establishment necessarily incurred considerable ex- 
 pense, James proposed to annex to the royal chapel the revenues 
 of the priory of Coldinghame, in Berwickshire. This rich 
 priory had its lands amongst the possessions of the Homes and 
 the Hepburns, who had established it as a kind of right that 
 the prior should be of one or other of these two families, in 
 order to insure their being favourably treated in such 
 bargains as either of them might have to make with the 
 Church. When, therefore, these powerful clans understood 
 that, instead of a Home or a Hepburn being named prior, the 
 King intended to bestow the revenues of Coldinghame to main- 
 tain his royal chapel at Stirling, they became extremely indig- 
 nant, and began to hold a secret correspondence, and form 
 alliances, with all the discontented men in Scotland, and 
 especially with Angus, and such other lords as, having been 
 engaged in the affair of Lauder bridge, naturally entertained 
 apprehensions that the King would, one day or other, find 
 means of avenging himself for the slaughter of his favourites, 
 and the restraint which had been imposed on his own person. 
 
 By the time that the King heard of this league against him, 
 
 it had reached so great a head that everything seemed to be 
 
 prepared for war, since the whole lords of the south of 
 
 Scotland, who could collect their forces with a rapidity 
 
 unknown elsewhere, were all in the field, and ready to act 
 
 James, naturally timid, was induced to fly to the North. He
 
 1485-8 INSURRECTION OF THE HOMES 201 
 
 fortified the castle of Stirling, commanded by Shaw of Fintrie, 
 to whom he committed the custody of the prince his son, and 
 heir-apparent, charging the governor neither to let any one 
 enter the castle, nor permit any one to leave it, as he loved his 
 honour and his life. Especially he commanded him to let no 
 one have access to his son. His treasures James deposited in 
 Edinburgh Castle; and having thus placed in safety, as he 
 thought, the two things he loved best in the world, he hastened 
 to the north country, where he was joined by the great lords 
 and gentlemen on that side of the Forth ; so that it seemed as 
 if the south and the north parts of Scotland were about to 
 fight against each other. 
 
 The King, in passing through Fife, visited James, the last 
 Earl of Douglas, who had been compelled, as I have before 
 told you, to become a monk in the abbey of Lindores. He 
 offered him full reconciliation and forgiveness, if he would once 
 more come out into the world, place himself at the head of his 
 vassals, and, by the terror of his former authority, withdraw 
 from the banners of the rebel peers such of the southland men 
 as might still remember the fame of Douglas. But the views 
 of the old Earl were turned towards another world, and he 
 replied to the King " Ah, sir, your Grace has kept me and 
 your black casket so long under lock and key, that the time in 
 which we might have done you good service is past and gone." 
 In saying this, he alluded to the King's hoard of treasure, 
 which, if he had spent in time, might have attached many to 
 his person, as he, Douglas, when younger, could have raised 
 men in his behalf; but now the period of getting aid from 
 either source was passed away. 
 
 Meanwhile Angus, Home, Bothwell, and others of the 
 insurgent nobility, determined, if possible, to get into their 
 hands the person of the prince, resolving that, notwithstanding 
 his being a child, they would avail themselves of his authority 
 to oppose that of his father. Accordingly, they bribed, with a 
 large sum of money, Shaw, the governor of Stirling Castle, to 
 deliver the prince (afterwards James IV.) into their keeping. 
 When they had thus obtained possession of Prince James's 
 person, they collected their army, and published proclamations 
 in his name, intimating that King James III. was bringing 
 Englishmen into the country to assist in overturning its 
 liberties, that he had sold the frontiers of Scotland to the
 
 202 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXII 
 
 Earl of Northumberland, and to the governor of Berwick, and 
 declaring that they were united to dethrone a king whose 
 intentions were so unkingly, and to place his son in his stead. 
 These allegations were false ; but the King was so unpopular 
 that they were listened to and believed. 
 
 James, in the meantime, arrived before Stirling at the head 
 of a considerable army, and passing to the gate of the castle, 
 demanded entrance. But the governor refused to admit him. 
 The King then eagerly asked for his son ; to which the treach- 
 erous governor replied, that the lords had taken the Prince 
 from him against his will. Then the poor King saw that he 
 was deceived, and said in wrath, " False villain, thou hast 
 betrayed me ; but if I live, thou shalt be rewarded according 
 to thy deserts !" If the King had not been thus treacherously 
 deprived of the power of retiring into Stirling Castle, he might, 
 by means of that fortress, have avoided a battle until more 
 forces had come up to his assistance ; and, in that case, might 
 have overpowered the rebel lords, as his father did the 
 Douglases before Abercorn. Yet having with him an army 
 of nearly thirty thousand men, he moved boldly towards the 
 insurgents. The Lord David Lindsay of the Byres, in parti- 
 cular, encouraged the King to advance. He had joined him 
 with a thousand horse and three thousand footmen from the 
 counties of Fife and Kinross ; and now riding up to the King 
 on a fiery gray horse, he lighted down, and entreated the King's 
 acceptance of that noble animal, which, whether he had occasion 
 to advance or retreat, would beat every other horse in Scotland, 
 provided the King could keep his saddle. 
 
 The King upon this took courage, and advanced against the 
 rebels, confident in his great superiority of numbers. The 
 field of battle was not above a mile or two distant from that 
 where Bruce had defeated the English on the glorious day of 
 Baunockburn ; but the fate of his descendant and successor 
 was widely different. 
 
 The King's army was divided into three great bodies. Ten 
 thousand Highlanders, under Huntly and Athole, led the van ; 
 ten thousand more, from the westland counties, were led by 
 the Lords of Erckine, Graham, and Menteith. The King was 
 to command the rear, in which the burghers sent by the 
 different towns were stationed. The Earl of Crawford and 
 Lord David Lindsay, with the men of Fife and Angus, had
 
 I 4 88 INSURRECTION OF THE IIOMES 203 
 
 the right wing ; Lord Ruthven commanded the left, with the 
 people of Strathearn and Stormont. 
 
 The King, thus moving forward in order of battle, called 
 for the horse which Lord David Lindsay had given him, that 
 he might ride forward and observe the motions of the enemy. 
 He saw them from an eminence advancing in three divisions, 
 having about six thousand men in each. The Homes and 
 Hepburns had the first division, with the men of the East 
 Borders and of East Lothian. The next was composed of the 
 Western Borderers, or men of Liddesdale and Annandale, with 
 many from Galloway. The third division consisted of the 
 rebel lords and their choicest followers, bringing with them the 
 young Prince James, and displaying the broad banner of Scot- 
 land. 
 
 When the King beheld his own ensign unfurled against him, 
 and knew that his son was in the hostile ranks, his heart, 
 never very courageous, began altogether to fail him; for he 
 remembered the prophecy, that he was to fall by his nearest of 
 kin, and also what the astrologer had told him of the Scottish 
 lion which was to be strangled by his own whelps. These idle 
 fears so preyed on James's mind, that his alarm became visible 
 to those around him, who conjured him to retire to a place of 
 safety. But at that moment the battle began. 
 
 The Homes and Hepburns attacked the King's vanguard, 
 but were repulsed by the Highlanders with volleys of arrows. 
 On this the Borderers of Liddesdale and Annandale, who bore 
 spears longer than those used in the other parts of Scotland, 
 charged with the wild and furious cries, which they called their 
 slogan, and bore down the royal forces opposed to them. 
 
 Surrounded by sights and sounds to which he was so little 
 accustomed, James lost his remaining presence of mind, and 
 turning his back, fled towards Stirling. But he was unable 
 to manage the gray horse given him by Lord Lindsay, which, 
 taking the bit in his teeth, ran full gallop downhill into a little 
 hamlet, where was a mill, called Beaton's mill. 1 A woman 
 had come out to draw water at the mill-dam, but, terrified at 
 seeing a man in complete armour coming down towards her at 
 
 1 "Beaton's mill the house so called, from the name of the person 
 who then possessed it, is still shown to the traveller as the place where 
 the King was murdered ; and the great antiquity and thickness of the 
 walls corroborate the tradition. " TYTLKR.
 
 204 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXII 
 
 full speed, she left her pitcher, and fled back into the mill. 
 The sight of the pitcher frightened the King's horse, so that 
 he swerved as he was about to leap the brook, and James, 
 losing his seat, fell to the ground, where, being heavily armed 
 and sorely bruised, he remained motionless. The people came 
 out, took him into the mill, and laid him on a bed. Some 
 time afterwards he recovered his senses ; but feeling himself 
 much hurt and very weak, he demanded the assistance of a 
 priest. The miller's wife asked who he was, and he impru- 
 dently replied, " I was your King this morning." With equal 
 imprudence the poor woman ran to the door, and called with 
 loud exclamations for a priest to confess the King. " I am a 
 priest," said an unknown person, who had just come up ; " lead 
 me to the King." When the stranger was brought into the 
 presence of the unhappy monarch, he kneeled with apparent 
 humility, and asked him, " Whether he was mortally wounded 1" 
 James replied, that his hurts were not mortal, if they were 
 carefully looked to ; but that, in the meantime, he desired to 
 be confessed, and receive pardon of his sins from a priest, 
 according to the fashion of the Catholic Church. " This shall 
 presently give thee pardon ! " answered the assassin ; and, 
 drawing a poniard, he stabbed the King four or five times to 
 the very heart ; then took the body on his back and departed, 
 no man opposing him, and no man knowing what he did with 
 the body. 
 
 Who this murderer was has never been discovered, nor 
 whether he was really a priest or not. There were three 
 persons, Lord Gray, Stirling of Keir, and one Borthwick, a 
 priest, observed to pursue the King closely, and it was supposed 
 that one or other of them did the bloody deed. It is remark- 
 able that Gray was the son of that Sir Patrick, commonly 
 called Cowe Gray, who assisted James II. to despatch Douglas 
 in Stirling Castle. It would be a singular coincidence if the 
 son of this active agent in Douglas's death should have been 
 the actor in that of King James's son. 
 
 The battle did not last long after the King left the field, the 
 royal party drawing off towards Stirling, and the victors re- 
 turning to their camp. It is usually called the battle of Sauchie 
 burn, and was fought upon the 18th of June 1488. 
 
 Thus died King James the Third, an unwise and unwarlike 
 prince ; although setting aside the murder of his brother the
 
 1488 SIR ANDREW WOOD 205 
 
 Earl of Mar, his character is rather that of a weak and avari- 
 cious man than of a cruel and criminal King. His taste for 
 the fine arts would have been becoming in a private person, 
 though it was carried to a pitch which interfered with his 
 duties as a sovereign. He fell, like most of his family, in the 
 flower of his age, being only thirty-six years old. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 Reign of James IV, Sir Andrew Wood Trial of Lord Lindsay 
 Perkin Warbeck Marriage of James with Margaret, Daughter of 
 Henry VII. 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Henry VII. 
 France: Charles VIII., Louis XII. 
 
 1488 1502 
 
 THE fate of James III. was not known for some time. He 
 had been a patron of naval affairs ; and on the great revolt in 
 which he perished, a brave sea officer, Sir Andrew Wood of 
 Largo, was lying with a small squadron in the Firth of Forth, 
 not far distant from the coast where the battle was fought. 
 He had sent ashore his boats, and brought off several wounded 
 men of the King's party, amongst whom it was supposed 
 might be the King himself. 
 
 Anxious to ascertain this important point, the lords sent to 
 Sir Andrew Wood to come on shore, and appear before their 
 council. Wood agreed, on condition that two noblemen of 
 distinction, Lords Seton and Fleming, should go on board his 
 ships, aud remain there as hostages for his safe return. 
 
 The brave seaman presented himself before the Council 
 and the young King in the town of Leith. As soon as 
 the Prince saw Sir Andrew, who was a goodly person, and 
 richly dressed, he went towards him, and said, "Sir, are you 
 my father ? " 
 
 " I am not your father," answered Wood, the tears falling 
 from his eyes ; " but I was your father's servant while he lived, 
 and shall be so to lawful authority until the day I die." 
 
 The lords then asked what men they were who had come
 
 206 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXIII 
 
 out of his ships, and again returned to them on the day of the 
 battle of Sauchie. 
 
 " It was I and my brother," said Sir Andrew, undauntedly, 
 " who were desirous to have bestowed our lives in the King^s 
 defence." 
 
 They then directly demanded of him, whether the King was 
 on board his ships 1 To which Sir Andrew replied, with the 
 same firmness, " He is not on board my vessels. I wish he 
 had been there, as I should have taken care to* have kept him 
 safe from the traitors who have murdered him, and whom I 
 trust to see hanged and drawn for their demerits." 
 
 These were bitter answers ; but the lords were obliged to 
 endure them, without attempting any revenge, for fear the 
 seamen had retaliated upon Fleming and Seton. But when 
 the gallant commander had returned on board his ship, they 
 sent for the best officers in the town of Leith, aud offered them 
 a reward if they would attack Sir Andrew Wood and his two 
 ships, and make him prisoner, to answer for his insolent con- 
 duct to the Council. But Captain Barton, one of the best 
 mariners in Leith, replied to the proposal by informing the 
 Council that though Sir Andrew had but two vessels, yet they 
 were BO well furnished with artillery, and he himself was BO 
 brave and skilful, that no ten ships in Scotland would be a 
 match for him. 
 
 James IV. afterwards received Sir Andrew Wood into high 
 favour; and he deserved it by his exploits. In 1490 a 
 squadron of five English vessels came into the Forth, and 
 plundered some Scottish merchant-ships. Sir Andrew sailed 
 against them with his two ships, the Flower, and the Yellow 
 Carvel, took the five English vessels, and making their crews 
 and commanders prisoners, presentetl them to the King at Leith. 
 Henry VII. of England was so much incensed at this defeat 
 that he sent a stout sea-captain, called Stephen Bull, with 
 three strong ships equipped on purpose, to take Sir Andrew 
 Wood. They met him near the mouth of the Firth, and 
 fought with the utmost courage on both sides, attending so 
 much to the battle, and so little to anything else, that they 
 let their ships drift with the tide ; so that the action, which 
 began off St. Abb's Head, ended in the Firth of Tay. At 
 length Stephen Bull and his three ships were taken. Sir 
 Andrew again presented the prisoners to the King, who sent
 
 i 4 88-9 TRIAL OF LINDSAY 207 
 
 them back to England, with a message to Henry VII., that he 
 had as manly men in Scotland as there were in England, and 
 therefore he desired he would send no more captains on such 
 errands. 
 
 To return to the lords who had gained the victory at 
 Sauchie. They took a resolution, which appears an act of 
 daring effrontery. They resolved to try some of the principal 
 persons who had assisted King James III. in the late civil 
 commotion, as if in so doing they had committed treason against 
 James IV., although the last was not, and could not be king, 
 till after his father's death. They determined to begin with 
 Lord David Lindsay of the Byres, a man well acquainted with 
 military matters, but otherwise blunt and ignorant ; so they 
 thought it would be no difficult matter to get him to submit 
 himself to the King's pleasure, when they proposed to take a 
 fine in money from him, or perhaps confiscate some part of his 
 lands. This they thought would encourage others to submit 
 in like manner ; and thus the conspirators proposed to enrich 
 themselves, and to impoverish those who had been their 
 enemies. 
 
 It was on the 10th of May 1489 that Lord David Lindsay 
 was summoned before the Parliament, then sitting at Edinburgh, 
 to defend himself against a charge of treason, which stated, 
 " That he had come in anns to Sauchie with the King's father 
 against the King himself, and had given the King's father a 
 sword and good horse, counselling him to devour the King's 
 grace here present." 
 
 Lord Lindsay knew nothing about the form of law affairs, 
 but hearing himself repeatedly called upon to answer to this 
 accusation, he started up, and told the nobles of the Parliament 
 they were all villains and traitors themselves, and that he 
 would prove them to be such with his sword. The late 
 King, he said, had been cruelly murdered by villains, who had 
 brought the Prince with them to be a pretext and colour for 
 their enterprise, and that if he punish not you hastily for that 
 murder, you will murder him when you think time, as you did 
 his father. " And," said the stout old lord, addressing himself 
 personally to the King, who was present in Parliament, "if 
 your Grace's father were still living, I would fight for him to 
 the death, and stand in no awe of these false lurdans " (that 
 is villains). " Or, if your Grace had a son who should come
 
 208 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP, XXIII 
 
 in arms against you, I would take your part against his abettors, 
 and fight in your cause against them, three men against six. 
 Trust me, that though they cause your Grace to believe ill of 
 me, I will prove in the end more faithful than any of them." 
 
 The Lord Chancellor, who felt the force of these words, 
 tried to turn off their effect, by saying to the King, that Lord 
 Lindsay was an old-fashioned man, ignorant of legal forms, 
 and not able to speak reverently in his Grace's presence. 
 "But," said he, "he will submit himself to your Grace's 
 pleasure, and you must not be severe with him ;" and, turning 
 to the Lord David, he said, " It is best for you to submit to 
 the King's will, and his Grace will be good to you." 
 
 Now you must know, that the Lord David had a brother- 
 german, named Patrick Lindsay, who was as good a lawyer 
 as Lord Lindsay was a soldier. The two brothers had been 
 long upon bad terms ; but when this Mr. Patrick saw the 
 Chancellor's drift, he trod upon his elder brother's foot, to 
 make him understand that he ought not to follow the advice 
 given him, nor come into the King's will, which would be in 
 fact confessing himself guilty. The Lord David, however, 
 did not understand the hint. On the contrary, as he chanced 
 to have a sore toe, the tread of his brother's foot was painful 
 to him, so that he looked fiercely at him, and said, " Thou art 
 too pert, thou loon, to stamp upon my foot if it were out of 
 the King's presence, I would strike thee upon the face." 
 
 But Mr. Patrick, without regarding his brother's causeless 
 anger, fell on his knees before the assembled nobles, and 
 besought that he might have leave to plead for his brother ; 
 " for," said he, " I see no man of law will undertake his cause 
 for fear of displeasing the King's grace ; and though, my lord, 
 iny brother and I have not been friends for many years, yet 
 my heart will not sutfer me to see the native house from which 
 I am descended perish for want of assistance." 
 
 The King having granted Mr. Patrick Lindsay liberty of 
 speech in his brother's behalf, he began by objecting to the 
 King's sitting in judgment in a case in which he was himself 
 a party, and had been an actor. " Wherefore," said Mr. Patrick, 
 " we object to his presence to tiy this cause, in which, being 
 a party, he ought not to be a judge. Therefore we require 
 his Majesty, in God's name, to rise and leave the court, till 
 the question be considered and decided." The Lord Chancellor
 
 1489-96 TRIAL OF LINDSAY 209 
 
 and the lords, having conversed together, found that this 
 request was reasonable. So the young King was obliged to 
 retire into an inner apartment, which he resented as a species 
 of public affront. 
 
 Mr. Patrick next endeavoured to procure favour, by entreat- 
 ing the lords who were about to hear the cause to judge it with 
 impartiality, and as they would wish to be dealt with them- 
 selves were they in misfortune, and some party adverse to 
 them possessed of power. 
 
 " Proceed, and answer to the accusation," said the Chancellor. 
 " You shall have justice at our hands." 
 
 Then Mr. Patrick brought forward a defence in point of legal 
 form, stating that the summons required that the Lord Lindsay 
 should appear forty days after citation, whereas the forty days 
 were now expired ; so that he could not be legally compelled 
 to answer to the accusation until summoned anew. 
 
 This was found good law; and Lord David Lindsay, and 
 the other persons accused, were dismissed for the time, nor 
 were any proceedings ever resumed against them. 
 
 Lord David, who had listened to the defences without under- 
 standing their meaning, was so delighted with the unexpected 
 consequences of his brother's eloquence, that he broke out into 
 the following rapturous acknowledgment of gratitude : "Verily, 
 brother, but you have fine piet words " (that is, magpie words). 
 " I could not have believed, by Saint Mary, that ye had such 
 words. Ye shall have the Mains of Kirkfother for your day's 
 wage." 
 
 The King, on his side, threatened Mr. Patrick with a reward 
 of a different kind, saying, " He would set him where he should 
 not see his feet for twelve months." Accordingly, he was as 
 good as his word, sending the successful advocate to be prisoner 
 in the dungeon of the castle of Kothsay, in the island of Bute, 
 where he lay for a whole year. 
 
 It is curious to find that the King's authority was so limited 
 in one respect, and so arbitrary in another. For it appears 
 that he was obliged to comply with Patrick Lindsay's remon- 
 strance, and leave the seat of regal justice, when his jurisdiction 
 was declined as that of a partial judge; whilst, on the other 
 hand, he had the right, or at least the power, to inflict upon 
 the objecting party a long and rigorous imprisonment, for 
 discharging his duty towards his client. 
 
 14
 
 210 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXIll 
 
 James IV. was not long upon the throne ere his own reflec- 
 tions, and the remonstrances of some of the clergy, made him 
 sensible that his accompanying the rebel lords against his father 
 in the field of Sauchie was a very sinful action. He did not 
 consider his own youth, nor the enticements of the lords, who 
 had obtained possession of his person, as any sufficient excuse 
 for having been, in some degree, accessory to his father's death, 
 by appealing in arms against him. He deeply repented the 
 crime, and, according to the doctrines of the Roman Catholic 
 religion, endeavoured to atone for it by various acts of penance. 
 Amongst other tokens of repentance, he caused to be made an 
 iron belt, or girdle, which he wore constantly under his clothes; 
 and every year of his life he added another link of an ounce 
 or two to the weight of it, as if he desired that his penance 
 should not be relaxed, but rather should increase during all the 
 days of his life. 
 
 It was, perhaps, in consequence of these feelings of remorse, 
 that the King not only forgave that part of the nobility which 
 had appeared on his father's side, and abstained from all further 
 persecution against Lord Lindsay and others, but did all in 
 his power to conciliate their affections, without losing those 
 of the other party. The wealth of his father enabled him to 
 be liberal to the nobles on both sides, and at the same time to 
 maintain a more splendid appearance in his court aud royal 
 state than had been practised by any of his predecessors. He 
 was himself expert in all feats of exercise and arms, and en- 
 couraged the use of them, and the practice of tilts aud tourna- 
 ments in his presence, wherein he often took part himself. It 
 was his frequent custom to make proclamation through his 
 kingdom, that all lords and gentlemen who might desire to win 
 honour should come to Edinburgh or Stirling, and exercise 
 themselves in tilting with the lance, fighting with the battle- 
 axe, the two-handed sword, shooting with the long bow, or 
 any other warlike contention. He who did best in these 
 encounters had his adversary's weapon delivered up to him ; 
 and the best tilter with the spear received from the King a 
 lance with a head of pure gold. 
 
 The fame of these warlike sports for sports they were 
 accounted, though they often ended in sad aud bloody earnest 
 brought knights from other parts of Europe to contend with 
 those of Scotland ; but, savs the historian, with laudable
 
 1489-96 WARLIKE SPORTS 211 
 
 partiality, there were none of them went unmatched, and few 
 that were not overthrown. 
 
 We may mention, as an example, the combat in the lists 
 betwixt a celebrated German knight, who came to Scotland in 
 search of champions with whom to match himself in single 
 fight, and whose challenge was accepted by Sir Patrick 
 Hamilton, a brother of the Earl of Arran, and near kinsman 
 to the King. They met gallantly with their lances at full 
 gallop, and broke their spears without doing each other further 
 injury. When they were furnished with fresh lances, they 
 took a second course; but the Scottish knight's horse, being 
 indifferently trained, swerved, and could by no endeavours of 
 the rider be brought to encounter his adversary. Then Sir 
 Patrick sprung from his saddle, and called to the German 
 knight to do the same, saying, " A horse was a weak warrant 
 to trust to when men had most to do." Then the German 
 dismounted, and fought stoutly with Sir Patrick for the best 
 part of an hour. At length Hamilton, by a blow of his sword, 
 brought the foreigner on his knees, whereupon the King threw 
 his hat into the lists, as a sign that the combat should cease. 
 But the honour of the day remained with Sir Patrick Hamilton. 
 
 Besides being fond of martial exercises, James encouraged 
 the arts, and prosecuted science, as it was then understood. 
 He studied medicine and surgery, and appears to have been 
 something of a chemist. 
 
 An experiment made under his direction shows at least the 
 interest which James took in science, although he used a 
 whimsical mode of gratifying his curiosity. Being desirous to 
 know which was the primitive or original language, he caused 
 a deaf and dumb woman to be transported to the solitary 
 island of Inchkeith, with two infant children, devising thus to 
 discover what language they would talk when they came to 
 the age of speech. A Scottish historian, who tells the story, 
 adds, with great simplicity, "Some say they spoke good 
 Hebrew; for my part I know not, but from report" It is 
 more likely they would scream like their dumb nurse, or bleat 
 like the goats and sheep on the island. 
 
 The same historian gives a very pleasing picture of James IV. 
 
 There was great love, he says, betwixt the subjects and 
 their sovereign, for the King was free from the vice of avarice, 
 which was his father's failing. Neither would lie endure flat-
 
 212 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXIII 
 
 terers, cowards, or sycophants about his person, but ruled by 
 the counsel of the most eminent nobles, and thus won the hearts 
 of all men. He ofteu went disguised among the common 
 people, and asked them questions about the King and his 
 measures, and thus learned the opinion which was entertained 
 of him by his subjects. 
 
 He was also active in the discharge of his royal duties. His 
 authority, as it was greater than that of any king who had 
 reigned since the time of James I., was employed for the 
 administration of justice, and the protection of every rank of 
 his subjects, so that he was reverenced as well as beloved by all 
 classes of his people. Scotland obtained, under his administra- 
 tion, a greater share of prosperity than she had yet enjoyed. 
 She possessed some share of foreign trade, and the success of 
 Sir Andrew Wood, together with the King's exertions in building 
 vessels, made the country be respected, as having a considerable 
 naval power. 
 
 These advantages were greatly increased by the unusually 
 long continuance of the peace, or rather the truce, with England. 
 Henry VII. had succeeded to the crown of that kingdom, after 
 a dreadful series of civil strife ; and being himself a wise and 
 sagacious monarch, he was desirous to repair, by a long interval 
 of repose and quiet, the great damage which the country had 
 sustained by the wars of York and Lancaster. He was the 
 more disposed to peace with Scotland, that his own title to the 
 throne of England was keenly disputed, and exposed him more 
 than once to the risk of invasion and insurrection. 
 
 On the most memorable of those occasions, Scotland was for 
 a short time engaged in the quarrel A certain personage, 
 calling himself Richard, Duke of York, second sou of Edward IV., 
 supposed to have been murdered in the Tower of London, laid 
 claim to the crown whicli Hemy VII. wore. On the part of 
 Henry, this pretended prince was said to be a low-born Fleming, 
 named Perkiu Warbcck, trained up by the Duchess of Burgundy 
 (sister of King Edward IV.), to play the part which he now 
 assumed. But it is not, perhaps, even yet certain, whether he 
 was the real person he called himself or an impostor. In 149G 
 he came to Scotland at the head of a gallant train of foreigners, 
 and accompanied by about fifteen hundred men, and made the 
 greatest offers to James IV., providing he would assist him in 
 hid claims against England. James does not appear to have*
 
 1496-7 PERKIN WARBECK 213 
 
 doubted the adventurer's pretensions to the character which he 
 assumed. He received him with favour and distinction, con- 
 ferred on him the hand of Lady Catharine Gordon, daughter of 
 the Earl of Huntly, the most beautiful woman in Scotland, and 
 disposed himself to lend him assistance to ascend the English 
 throne. 
 
 The Scottish King with this view entered Northumberland, 
 and invited the people of that warlike country to join the ranks 
 of the supposed prince. But the Northumbrians paid no atten- 
 tion to this invitation, and when the adventurer besought James 
 to spare the country, the Scottish monarch answered with a 
 sneer, that it was very kind of him to interfere in behalf of a 
 people who did not seem at all disposed to acknowledge him. 
 The English in 1497 revenged his inroad by an invasion of 
 Berwickshire, in which they took a small castle, called Ayton. 
 No other mischief was done on either side, for James gave up 
 the cause of Perkin Warbeck, satisfied either that he had no 
 right to the throne or that he had not a hold on the affections 
 of any considerable party sufficient to make such a right good. 
 The adventurer, abandoned by James, made afterwards an 
 attempt to invade England from Cornwall, and, being made 
 prisoner, was executed at Tyburn. His wife, who had faith- 
 fully attended him through all his misfortunes, fell into the 
 hands of Henry VII., who assigned her a pension, and recom- 
 mended her to the protection of his Queen. She was commonly 
 called, from her grace and beauty, the White Rose of Scotland. 
 
 After this short war had been made up by a truce of seven 
 years, Henry's wisdom was employed in converting that truce 
 into a stable and lasting peace, which might, for a length of 
 time at least, unite two nations whose mutual interest it was 
 to remain friends, although circumstances had so long made 
 them enemies. The grounds of the inveterate hostility between 
 England and Scotland had been that unhappy claim of supremacy 
 set up by Edward I., and persevered in by all his successors. 
 This was a right which England would not abandon, and to 
 which the Scots, by so many instances of determined resistance, 
 had shown they would never submit. For more than a hundred 
 years there had been no regular treaty of peace betwixt England 
 and Scotland, except for the few years which succeeded the 
 treaty of Northampton. During this long period, the kindred 
 nations had been either engaged in the most inveterate wars, or
 
 214 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXIH 
 
 reposing themselves under the protection of short and doubtful 
 truces. 
 
 The wisdom of Henry VII. endeavoured to find a remedy 
 for such great evils, by trying what the effects of gentle and 
 friendly influence would avail, where the extremity of force had 
 been employed without effect. The King of England agreed to 
 give his daughter Margaret, a beautiful and accomplished 
 princess, to James IV. in marriage. He offered to endow her 
 with an ample fortune, and on that alliance was to be founded 
 a close league of friendship between England and Scotland, the 
 kings obliging themselves to assist each other against all the 
 rest of the world. Unfortunately for both countries, but 
 particularly so for Scotland, this peace, designed to be perpetual, 
 did not last above ten years. Yet the good policy of Henry 
 VII. bore fruit after a hundred years had passed away ; and in 
 consequence of the marriage of James IV. and the Princess 
 Margaret, an end was put to all future national wars, by their 
 great grandson, James VI. of Scotland and I. of England, 
 becoming King of the whole island of Great Britain. 
 
 The claim of supremacy, asserted by England, is not men- 
 tioned in this treaty, which was signed on the 4th of January 
 1502 ; but as the monarchs treated with each other on equal 
 terms, that claim, which had cost such oceans of Scottish and 
 English blood, must be considered as having been then virtu- 
 ally abandoned. 
 
 This important marriage was celebrated with great pomp. 
 The Earl of Surrey, a gallant English nobleman, had the 
 charge to conduct the Princess Margaret to her new kingdom 
 of Scotland The King came to meet her at Newbattle Abbey, 
 within six miles of Edinburgh. He was gallantly dressed in a 
 jacket of crimson velvet, bordered with cloth of gold, and had 
 hanging at his back his lure, as it is called, an implement which 
 is used in hawking. He was distinguished by his strength and 
 agility, leaping on his horse without putting his too in the 
 stirrup, and always riding full gallop, follow who could. When 
 he was about to enter Edinburgh with his new bride, he wished 
 her to ride behind him, and made a gentleman mount to see 
 whether his horse would carry double. But as his spirited 
 charger was not broken for that purpose, the King got up 
 before his bride on her palfrey, which was quieter, and so they 
 rode through the town of Edinburgh in procession, in the same
 
 MARRIAGE OF JAMES IV. 215 
 
 manner as you may now see a good farmer and his wife riding 
 to church. There were shows prepared to receive them, all in 
 the romantic taste of the age. Thus they found in their way 
 a tent pitched, out of which came a knight armed at all points, 
 with a lady bearing his bugle-horn. Suddenly another knight 
 came up and took away the lady. Then the first knight 
 followed him, and challenged him to fight. They drew swords 
 accordingly, and fought before the King and Queen for their 
 amusement, till the one struck the sword out of the other's 
 hands, and then the King commanded the battle to cease. 
 In this representation all was sport except the blows, and these 
 were serious enough. Many other military spectacles were 
 exhibited, tilts and tournaments in particular. James, calling 
 himself the Savage Knight, appeared in a wild dress, accompanied 
 by the fierce chiefs from the Borders and Highlands, who 
 fought with each other till several were wounded and slain in 
 these ferocious entertainments. It is said the King was not 
 very sorry to see himself thus rid of these turbulent leaders, 
 whose feuds and depredations contributed so often to the public 
 disturbance. 
 
 The sports on occasion of the Queen's marriage, and indeed 
 the whole festivities of King James's reign, and the style of 
 living at his court, showed that the Scots, in his time, were a 
 wealthier and a more elegant people than they had formerly been. 
 James IV. was renowned, as we have seen, among foreign 
 nations, for the splendour of his court, and for the honourable 
 reception which he gave to strangers who visited his kingdom. 
 And we shall see in the next chapter that his leisure was not 
 entirely bestowed on sport and pastime, but that he also made 
 wise laws for the benefit of the kingdom.
 
 216 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP, xxiv 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 Improvement on Scottish Laws Disputes bettceen England and 
 Scotland Batik of Flodden, and Death of James IV. 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England \ Henry VII., Henry VIII., 
 France : Louis XII. 
 
 15021513 
 
 DURING the season of tranquillity which followed the marriage 
 of James and Margaret, we find that the King, with his Parlia- 
 ment, enacted many good laws for the improvement of the 
 country. The Highlands and Islands were particularly at- 
 tended to, because, as one of the acts of Parliament expressed 
 it, they had become almost savage for want of justices and 
 sheriffs. Magistrates were therefore appointed, and laws made 
 for the government of those wild and unruly people. 
 
 Another most important act of Parliament permitted the 
 King, and his nobles and barons, to let their land, not only 
 for military service, but for a payment in money or in grain ; a 
 regulation which tended to introduce quiet peaceful farmers 
 into lands occupied, but left uncultivated, by tenants of a 
 military character. Regulations also took place for attendance 
 on Parliament, and the representation of the different orders 
 of society in that assembly. The possessors of lands were 
 likewise called on to plant wood, and make enclosures, fish- 
 ponds, and other improvements. 
 
 All these regulations show that the King had a sincere 
 wish to benefit his subjects, and entertained liberal views of 
 the mode of accomplishing that object But the unfortunate 
 country of Scotland was destined never to remain any long 
 time in a state of peace or improvement; and accordingly, 
 towards the end of James's reign, events occurred which 
 brought on a defeat still more calamitous than any which the 
 kingdom had yet received. 
 
 While Henry VII., the father-in-law of James, continued to 
 live, his wisdom made him very attentive to preserve the peace 
 which had been established betwixt the two countries. His 
 character was, indeed, far from being that of a generous prince,
 
 1502- 1 1 NAVAL AFFAIRS 217 
 
 but he was a sagacious politician, and granted, from an en- 
 lightened view of his own interest, what perhaps he would 
 otherwise have been illiberal enough to refuse. On this prin- 
 ciple he made some allowance for the irritable pride of his 
 son-in-law and his subjects, who were as proud as they were 
 poor, and made it his study to remove all the petty causes of 
 quarrel which arose from time to time. But when this wise 
 and cautious monarch died, he was succeeded by his son Henry 
 VIIL, a prince of a bold, haughty, and furious disposition, 
 impatient of control or contradiction, and rather desirous of 
 war than willing to make any concessions for the sake of 
 peace. James IV. and he resembled each other perhaps too 
 nearly in temper to admit of their continuing intimate friends. 
 
 The military disposition of Henry chiefly directed him to 
 an enterprise against France ; and the King of France, on his 
 part, desired much to renew the old alliance with Scotland, in 
 order that the apprehension of an invasion from the Scottish 
 frontiers might induce Henry to abandon his scheme of attack- 
 ing France. He knew that the splendour in which King 
 James lived had exhausted the treasures which his father had 
 left behind him, and he concluded that the readiest way to 
 make him his friend was to supply him with sums of money, 
 which he could not otherwise have raised. Gold was also 
 freely distributed amongst the counsellors and favourites of the 
 Scottish King. This liberality showed to great advantage 
 when compared with the very opposite conduct of the King 
 of England, who delayed even to pay a legacy which had been 
 left by Henry his father to his sister the Queen of Scotland. 
 
 Other circumstances of a different kind tended to create dis- 
 agreements between England and Scotland. James had been 
 extremely desirous to increase the strength of his kingdom by 
 sea, and its commerce ; and Scotland presenting a great extent 
 of sea-coast, and numerous harbours, had at this time a con- 
 siderable trade. The royal navy, besides one vessel called the 
 Great Michael, supposed to be the largest in the world, and 
 which, as an old author says, "cumbered all Scotland to get 
 her fitted out for sea," consisted, it is said, of sixteen ships of 
 war. The King paid particular attention to naval alFairs, and 
 seemed never more happy than when inspecting and exercising 
 his little navy. 
 
 It chanced that one John Barton, a Scottish mariner, had
 
 218 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXIV 
 
 taen captured by the Portuguese, as far back as the year 147G. 
 As the King of Portugal refused to make any amends, James 
 granted the family of Barton letters of reprisals, that is, a 
 warrant empowering them to take all Portuguese vessels which 
 should come in their way, until their loss was made up. 
 There were three brothers, all daring men, but especially the 
 eldest, whose name was Andrew Barton. He had two strong 
 ships, the larger called the Lion, the lesser the Jenny Pirwen, 
 with which it would appear he cruised in the British Channel, 
 stopping not only Portuguese vessels, but also English ships 
 bound for Portugal Complaints being made to King Henry, 
 he fitted out two vessels, which were filled with chosen men, 
 and placed under the command of Lord Thomas Howard and 
 Sir Edward Howard, both sons to the Earl of Surrey. They 
 found Barton and his vessels cruising in the Downs, being 
 guided to the place by the captain of a merchant vessel whom 
 Barton had plundered on the preceding day. 
 
 On approaching the enemy, the noble brothers showed no 
 ensign of war, but put up a willow wand on their masts, as 
 being the emblem of a trading vessel. But when 
 the Scotsman attempted to make them bring to, the 
 English threw out their flags and pennons, and fired a broad- 
 side of their ordnance. Barton then knew that he was en- 
 gaged with the King of England's ships of war. Far from 
 being dismayed at this, he engaged boldly, and, distinguished 
 by his rich dress and bright armour, appeared on deck with a. 
 whistle of gold about his neck, suspended by a chain of the 
 same precious metal, and encouraged his men to fight valiantly. 
 
 The fight was very obstinate. If we may believe a ballad 
 of the time, Barton's ship was furnished with a peculiar con- 
 trivance, suspending large weights, or beams, from his yard- 
 arms, to be dropped down upon the enemy when they should 
 come alongside. To make use of this contrivance, it was 
 necessary that a person should ascend the mainmast, or in 
 naval language, go aloft. As the English apprehended much 
 mischief from the consequences of this manoeuvre, Howard had 
 stationed a Yorkshire gentleman, named Hustler, the best 
 archer in the ship, with strict injunctions to shoot every one 
 who should attempt to go aloft to let fall the beams of Barton's 
 vessel Two men were successively killed in the attempt, and 
 Andrew Barton himself, confiding in the strong armour which
 
 I5M NAVAL AFFAIRS 219 
 
 he wore, began to ascend the mast. Lord Thomas Howard 
 called out to the archer to shoot true, on peril of his life. 
 " Were I to die for it," said Hustler, " I have but two arrows 
 left." The first which he shot bounded from Barton's armoxii 
 without hurting him ; but as the Scottish mariner raised hia 
 arm to climb higher, the archer took aim where the armour 
 afforded him no protection, and wounded him mortally through 
 the arm-pit. 
 
 Barton descended from the mast. "Fight on," he said, 
 " my brave hearts ; I am a little wounded, but not slain. I 
 will but rest a while, and then rise and fight again ; meantime, 
 stand fast by Saint Andrew's Cross," meaning the Scottish 
 flag, or ensign. He encouraged his men with his whistle 
 while the breath of life remained. At length the whistle was 
 heard no longer, and the Howards, boarding the Scottish 
 vessel, found that her daring captain was dead. They carried 
 the Lion into the Thames, and it is remarkable that Barton's 
 ship became the second man-of-war in the English navy. 
 When the kings wanted to equip a fleet, they hired or pressed 
 into their service merchant vessels, and put soldiers on board 
 of them. The ship called the Great Henry was the first 
 built especially for war, by the King, as his own property, 
 this captured vessel was the second. 
 
 James IV. was highly incensed at this insult, as he termed 
 it, on the flag of Scotland, and sent a herald to demand satis- 
 faction. The King of England justified his conduct on the 
 ground of Barton's being a pirate, a charge which James 
 could not justly deny ; but he remained not the less heated 
 and incensed against his brother-in-law. Another misfortune 
 aggravated his resentment, though the subject of misunder- 
 standing was of ancient date. 
 
 While Henry VII. was yet alive, Sir Robert Ker of Fair- 
 niehirst, chief of one branch of the clan of Ker, an officer of 
 James's household, and a favourite of that monarch, held the 
 office of warden on the Middle Marches of Scotland. In exercis- 
 ing this office with rather unusual strictness, he had given offence 
 to some of the more turbulent English Borderers, who resolved 
 to assassinate him. Three of these, namely Heron, called the 
 Bastard, because a natural brother of Heron of Ford, with 
 Starhed and Lilburn, surrounded the Scottish warden, at a 
 meeting upon a day of truce, and killed him with their lances.
 
 220 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXIV 
 
 Henry VII., with the pacific policy which marked his pro- 
 ceedings towards Scotland, agreed to surrender the guilty 
 persons. Lilburn was given up to King James, and died in 
 captivity ; Starhed escaped for a time, by flying into the 
 interior parts of England ; the Bastard Heron caused it to be 
 rumoured that he was dead of the plague, and made himself be 
 transported in a coffin, so that he passed unsuspected through 
 the party sent to arrest him, and skulked on the Borders, 
 waiting for a quarrel between the kingdoms, which might 
 make it safe for him to show himself. Henry VII., anxious to 
 satisfy James, arrested his legitimate brother, and Heron of 
 Ford was delivered up instead of the Bastard. But when 
 Henry VIII. and James were about to disagree, both the 
 Bastard Heron and Starhed began to show themselves more 
 publicly. Starhed was soon disposed of, for Sir Andrew, 
 commonly called Dand Ker, the son of the murdered Sir 
 Robert, sent two of his dependents, called Tait, to accomplish 
 his vengeance upon the English Borderer. They surprised and 
 put him to death accordingly, and brought his head to their 
 patron, who exposed it publicly at the cross of Edinburgh, 
 exulting in the revenge he had taken. But the Bastard Heron 
 continued to rove about the Border, and James IV. made the 
 public appearance of this criminal a subject of complaint 
 against Henry VIII., who perhaps was not justly responsible 
 for it 
 
 While James was thus on bad terms with his brother-in 
 law, France left no measures unattempted which could attach 
 Scotland to her side. Great suras of money were sent to 
 secure the good-will of those coitrtiers in whom James most 
 confided. The Queen of France, a young and beautiful prin- 
 cess, flattered James's taste for romantic gallantry by calling 
 herself his mistress and lady-love, and conjuring him to march 
 three miles upon English ground for her sake. She sent him, 
 at the same time, a ring from her own finger ; and her inter- 
 cession was so powerful, that James thought he could not in 
 honour dispense with her request. This fantastical spirit of 
 chivalry was his own ruin, and very nearly that of the king- 
 dom also. 
 
 At length, in June or July 1513, Henry VIII. sailed to 
 France with a gallant army, where he formed the siege of 
 Terouennc. James IV. now took a decided step. He sent
 
 1511-13 DISPUTES WITH ENGLAND 221 
 
 over his principal herald to the camp of King Henry before 
 Terouenne, summoning him in haughty terms to abstain from 
 aggressions against James's ally, the King of France, and up- 
 braiding him, at the same time, with the death of Barton, the 
 impunity of the Bastard Heron, the detention of the legacy of 
 Henry VII. to his daughter the Scottish Queen, and all the 
 subjects of quarrel which had occurred since the death of that 
 monarch. Henry VIII. answered this letter, which he justly 
 considered as a declaration of war, with equal bitterness, 
 treating the King of Scots as a perjured man, because he was 
 about to break the peace which he had solemnly sworn to 
 observe. His summons he rejected with scorn. " The King 
 of Scotland was not," he said, "of sufficient importance to 
 determine the quarrel between England and France." The 
 Scottish herald returned with this message, but not in time to 
 find his master alive. 
 
 James had not awaited the return of his embassy to com- 
 mence hostilities. Lord Home, his lord high chamberlain, 
 had made an incursion into England with an army of about 
 three or four thousand men. They collected great booty ; but 
 marching carelessly and without order, iell into an ambush of 
 the English Borderers, concealed among the tall broom by 
 which Millfield Plain, near Wooler, was then covered. The 
 Scots sustained a total defeat, and lost near a third of their 
 numbers in slain and wounded. This was a bad commence- 
 ment of the war. 
 
 Meanwhile James, contrary to the advice of his wisest 
 counsellors, determined to invade England with a royal army. 
 The Parliament were unwilling to go into the King's mea- 
 sures. The tranquillity of the country, ever since the peace 
 with England, was recollected, and as the impolitic claim of 
 the supremacy seemed to be abandoned, little remaine to stir 
 up the old animosity between the kingdoms. The King, how- 
 ever, was personally so much liked, that he obtained the con- 
 sent of the Parliament to this fatal and unjust war ; and orders 
 were given to assemble all the array of the kingdom of 
 Scotland upon the Borough-moor of Edinburgh, a wide com- 
 mon, in the midst of which the royal standard was displayed 
 from a large stone, or fragment of rock, called the Hare- 
 stone. 
 
 Various measures were even in this extremity resorted to
 
 222 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXIV 
 
 for preventing the war. One or two of them seem to have 
 been founded upon a knowledge that the King's temper was 
 tiuged with a superstitious melancholy, partly arising from 
 constitutional habits, partly from the remorse which he al- 
 ways entertained for his accession to his father's death. It 
 was to these feelings that the following scene was doubtless 
 addressed : 
 
 As the King was at his devotions in the church of Linlith- 
 gow, a figure, dressed iu an azure -coloured robe, girt with a 
 girdle, or sash of linen, having sandals on his feet, with long 
 yellow hair, and a grave commanding countenance, suddenly 
 appeared before him. This singular-looking person paid little 
 or no respect to the royal presence, but pressing up to the 
 desk at which the King was seated, leaned down on it with his 
 arms, and addressed him with little reverence. He declared, 
 that " his Mother laid her commands on James to forbear the 
 journey which he purposed, seeing that neither he, nor any 
 who went with him, would thrive in the undertaking." He 
 also cautioned the King against frequenting the society of 
 women, and using their counsel ; " If thou dost," said he, 
 " thou shalt be confounded and brought to shame." 
 
 These words spoken, the messenger escaped from among the 
 courtiers so suddenly, that he seemed to disappear. There is 
 no doubt that this person had been dressed up to represent 
 Saint John, called in Scripture the adopted son of the Virgin 
 Maiy. The Roman Catholics believed in the possibility of 
 the souls of departed saints and apostles appearing on earth, 
 and many impostures are recorded iu history of the same sort 
 with that I have just told you. 
 
 Another story, not so well authenticated, says, that a pro- 
 clamation was heard at the market-cross of Edinburgh, at the 
 dead of night, summoning the King, by his name and titles, 
 and many of his nobles and principal leaders, to appear before 
 the tribunal of Pluto within the space of forty days. This also 
 has the appearance of a stratagem, invented to deter the King 
 from his expedition. 
 
 But neither these artifices, nor the advice and entreaty of 
 Margaret, the Queen of Scotland, could deter James from his 
 unhappy expedition. He was so well beloved that he soon 
 assembled a great army, and placing himself at their head, he 
 entered England near the castle of Twi.sell, on the 22d of
 
 1513 INVASION OF ENGLAND 223 
 
 August 1513. He speedily obtained possession of the Border 
 fortresses of Norham, Wark, Etal], Ford, and others of less 
 note, and collected a great spoil. Instead, however, of advanc- 
 ing with his army upon the country of England, which lay 
 defenceless before him, the King is said to have trifled away 
 his time with Lady Heron of Ford, a beautiful woman, who 
 contrived to divert him from the prosecution of his expedition 
 until the approach of an English army. 
 
 While James lay thus idle on the frontier, the Earl of Sur- 
 rey, that same noble and gallant knight who had formerly 
 escorted Queen Margaret to Scotland, now advanced at the 
 head of an army of twenty-six thousand men. The Earl was 
 joined by his son Thomas, the lord high admiral, with a large 
 body of soldiers who had been disembarked at Newcastle. As 
 the warlike inhabitants of the northern counties gathered fast 
 to Surrey's standard, so, on the other hand, the Scots began 
 to return home in great numbers ; because, though according 
 to the feudal laws, each man had brought with him provisions 
 for forty days, these being now nearly expended, a scarcity 
 began to be felt in James's host. Oth era went home to place 
 their booty in safety. 
 
 Surrey, feeling himself the stronger party, became desirous 
 to provoke the Scottish King to fight. He therefore sent 
 James a message, defying him to battle ; and the Lord Thomas 
 Howard, at the same time, added a message, that as King 
 James had often complained of the death of Andrew Barton, 
 he, Lord Thomas, by whom that deed was done, was now ready 
 to maintain it with his sword in the front of the fight. James 
 returned for answer, that to meet the English in battle was so 
 much his wish, that had the message of the Earl found him at 
 Edinburgh, he would have laid aside all other business to have 
 met him on a pitched field. 
 
 But the Scottish nobles entertained a very different opinion 
 from their King. They held a council at which Lord Patrick 
 Lindsay was made president, or chancellor. This was the 
 same person who, in the beginning of the King's reign, had 
 pleaded so well for his brother, to whose titles and estate he 
 afterwards succeeded. He opened the discussion, by telling the 
 council a parable of a rich merchant, who would needs go to play 
 at dice with a common hazarder, or sharper, and stake a rose- 
 noble of gold against a crooked halfpenny. " You, my lords,"
 
 224 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXIV 
 
 he said, " will be as uiiwise as the merchant, if you risk your 
 King, whom I compare to a precious rose- noble, against the 
 English general, who is but an old crooked churl, lying in a 
 chariot. Though the English lose the day, they lose nothing 
 but this old churl and a parcel of mechanics ; whereas so many 
 of our common people have gone home, that few are left with 
 us but the prime of our nobility." He therefore gave it as 
 his advice, that the King should withdraw from the army, for 
 safety of his person, and that some brave nobleman should be 
 named by the council, to command in the action. The council 
 agreed to recommend this plan to the King. 
 
 But James, who desired to gain fame by his own military 
 skill and prowess, suddenly broke in on the council, and told 
 them, with much heat, that they should not put such a dis- 
 grace upon him. "I will fight with the English," he said, 
 though you had all sworn the contrary. You may shame your- 
 selves by flight, but you shall not shame me ; and as for Lord 
 Patrick Lindsay, who has got the first vote, I vow, that when 
 I return to Scotland, I will cause him to be hanged over his 
 own gate." 
 
 In this rash and precipitate resolution to fight at all risks, 
 the King was much supported by the French ambassador, De 
 la Motte. This was remarked by one of our old acquaintances, 
 the Earl of Angus, called Bell-the-Cat, who, though very old, 
 had come out to the field with his sovereign. He charged the 
 Frenchman with being willing to sacrifice the interests of 
 Scotland to those of his own country, which required that the 
 Scots and English should fight at all hazards ; and Angus, like 
 Lord Lindsay, alleged the diiference between the parties, the 
 English being many of them men but of mean rank, and 
 the Scottish army being the ilower of their nobility and gen- 
 try. Incensed at his opposition, James said to him scornfully, 
 " Angus, if you are afraid, you may go home." The Earl, on 
 receiving such an insult, left the camp that night ; but his two 
 .-'us remained, and fell in the fatal battle, with two hundred 
 of the name of Douglas. 
 
 While King James was in this stubborn humour, the Earl 
 of Surrey had advanced as far as Wooler, so that only four or 
 five miles divided the armies. The English leader inquired 
 anxiously for some guide, who was acquainted with the country, 
 which is intersected and divided by one or two large brooks,
 
 1513 BATTLE OF FLODDEN 225 
 
 which unite to form the river Till, and is, besides, in part 
 mountainous. A person well mounted, and completely armed, 
 but having the visor of his helmet lowered, to conceal his face, 
 rode up, and, dismounting, knelt down before the Earl, and 
 offered to be his guide, if he might obtain pardon of an offence 
 of which he had been guilty. The Earl assured him of his 
 forgiveness, provided he had not committed treason against the 
 King of England, or personally wronged any lady crimes which 
 Surrey declared he would not pardon. " God forbid," said the 
 cavalier, " that I should have been guilty of such shameful sin ; 
 I did but assist in killing a Scotsman who ruled our Borders 
 too strictly, and often did wrong to Englishmen." So saying, 
 he raised the visor of his helmet, which hid his face, and showed 
 the countenance of the Bastard Heron, who had been a partner 
 in the assassination of Sir Robert Ker, as you were told before. 
 His appearance was most welcome to the Earl of Surrey, who 
 readily pardoned him the death of a Scotsman at that moment, 
 especially since he knew him to be as well acquainted with 
 every pass and path on the eastern frontier as a life of constant 
 incursion and depredation could make him. 
 
 The Scottish army had fixed their camp upon a hill called 
 Flodden, which rises to close in, as it were, the extensive flat 
 called Millfield Plain. This eminence slopes steeply 
 towards the plain, and there is an extended piece 
 of level ground on the top, where the Scots might have drawn 
 up their army, and awaited at great advantage the attack of 
 the English. Surrey liked the idea of venturing an assault on 
 that position so ill, that he resolved to try whether he could 
 not prevail on the King to abandon it. He sent a herald to 
 invite James to come down from the height, and join battle in 
 the open plain of Millfield below reminded him of the readi- 
 ness with which he had accepted his former challenge and 
 hinted, that it was the opinion of the English chivalry assembled 
 for battle, that any delay of the encounter would sound to the 
 King's dishonour. 
 
 We have seen that James was sufficiently rash and impru- 
 dent, but his impetuosity did not reach to the pitch Surrey 
 perhaps expected. He refused to receive the messenger into 
 his presence, and returned for answer, that it was not such a 
 message as it became an earl to send to a king. 
 
 Surrey, therefore, distressed for provisions, was obliged to 
 15
 
 226 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXIV 
 
 resort to another mode of bringing the Scots to action He 
 moved northward, sweeping round the hill of Flodden, 
 " keeping out of the reach of the Scottish artillery, until, 
 crossing the Till near Twisell Castle, he placed himself, with 
 his whole army, betwixt James and his own kingdom. The 
 King suffered him to make this flank movement without interrup- 
 tion, though it must have afforded repeated and advantageous 
 opportunities for attack. But when he saw the English army 
 interposed betwixt him and his dominions, he became alarmed 
 lest he should be cut off from Scotland. In this apprehension 
 he was confirmed by one Giles Musgrave, an Englishman, whose 
 counsel he used upon the occasion, and who assured him, that 
 if he did not descend and fight with the English army, the Earl 
 of Surrey would enter Scotland, and lay waste the whole country. 
 Stimulated by this apprehension, the King resolved to give 
 signal for the fatal battle. 
 
 With this view the Scots set fire to their huts, and the 
 other refuse and litter of their camp. The smoke spread along 
 the side of the hill, and under its cover the army of King James 
 descended the eminence, which is much less steep on the northern 
 than the southern side, while the English advanced to meet 
 them, both concealed from each other by the clouds of smoke. 
 
 The Scots descended in four strong columns, all marching 
 parallel to each other, having a reserve of the Lothian men, 
 commanded by Earl BothwelL The English were also divided 
 into four bodies, with a reserve of cavalry led by Dacre. 
 
 The battle commenced at the hour of four in the afternoon. 
 The first which encountered was the left wing of the Scots, 
 commanded by the Earl of Huntly and Lord Home, which 
 overpowered and threw into disorder the right wing of the 
 English, under Sir Edmund Howard. Sir Edmund was beaten 
 down, his standard taken, and he himself in danger of instant 
 death, when he was relieved by the Bastard Heron, who came 
 up at the head of a band of determined outlaws like himself, 
 and extricated Howard. It is alleged against Lord Home by 
 many Scottish writers, that he ought to have improved his 
 advantage, by hastening to the support of the next division of 
 the Scottish army. It is even pretended, that he replied to 
 those who urged him to go to the assistance of the King, that 
 " the man did well that day who stood and saved himself." 
 But this seems invented, partly to criminate Home, and partly
 
 1513 BATTLE OF FLODDEN 227 
 
 to account for the loss of the battle in some other way than by 
 the superiority of the English. In reality, the English cavalry, 
 under Dacre, which acted as a reserve, appear to have kept the 
 victors in check ; while Thomas Howard, the lord high admiral, 
 who commanded the second division of the English, bore down, 
 and routed the Scottish division commanded by Crawford and 
 Montrose, who were both slain. Thus matters went on the 
 Scottish left. 
 
 Upon the extreme right of James's army, a division of High- 
 landers, consisting of the clans of MacKenzie, MacLean, and 
 others, commanded by the Earls of Lennox and Argyle, were so 
 insufferably annoyed by the volleys of the English arrows, that 
 they broke their ranks, and, in despite of the cries, entreaties, 
 and signals of De la Motte, the French ambassador, who en- 
 deavoured to stop them, rushed tumultuously down hill, and 
 being attacked at once in flank and rear by Sir Edward Stanley, 
 with the men of Cheshire and Lancashire, were routed with 
 great slaughter. 
 
 The only Scottish division which remains to be mentioned 
 was commanded by James in person, and consisted of the 
 choicest of his nobles and gentry, whose armour was so good, 
 that the arrows made but slight impression upon them. They 
 were all on foot the King himself had parted with his horse. 
 They engaged the Earl of Surrey, who opposed to them the 
 division which he personally commanded. The Scots attacked 
 with the greatest fury, and, for a time, had the better. Surrey's 
 squadrons were disordered, his standard in great danger, Both- 
 well and the Scottish reserve were advancing, and the English 
 seemed in some risk of losing the battle. But Stanley, who 
 had defeated the Highlanders, came up on one flank of the 
 King's division; the Admiral, who had conquered Crawford 
 and Montrose, assailed them on the other. The Scots showed 
 the most undaunted courage. Uniting themselves with the 
 reserve under Bothwell, they formed into a circle, with their 
 spears extended on every side, and fought obstinately. Bows 
 being now useless, the English advanced on all sides with their 
 bills, a huge weapon which made ghastly wounds. But they 
 could not force the Scots either to break or retire, although the 
 carnage among them was dreadful. James himself died amid 
 his warlike peers and loyal gentry. He was twice wounded 
 with arrows, and at length despatched with a bill. Night fell
 
 228 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXIV 
 
 without the battle being absolutely decided, for the Scottish 
 centre kept their ground, and Home and Dacre held each other 
 at bay. But during the night, the remainder of the Scottish 
 army drew off in silent despair from the bloody field, on which 
 they left their King, and the flower of his nobility. 
 
 This great and decisive victory was gained by the Earl of 
 Surrey on 9th September 1513. The victors had about five 
 thousand men slain, the Scots twice that number at least. But 
 the loss lay not so much in the number of the slain, as iii their 
 rank and quality. The English lost very few men of distinction. 
 The Scots left on the field the King, two bishops, two mitred 
 abbots, twelve earls, thirteen lords, and five eldest sons of peers. 
 The number of gentlemen slain was beyond calculation ; there 
 is scarcely a family of name in Scottish history who did not lose 
 a relative there. 
 
 The Scots were much disposed to dispute the fact that 
 James IV. had fallen on Flodden Field. Some said he had 
 retired from the kingdom, and made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. 
 Others pretended that in the twilight, when the fight was nigh 
 ended, four tall horsemen came into the field, having each a 
 bunch of straw on the point of their spears, as a token for them 
 to know each other by. They said these men mounted the 
 King on a dun hackney, and that he was seen to cross the 
 Tweed with them at night-fall. Nobody pretended to say what 
 they did with him, but it was believed he was murdered in 
 Home Castle; and I recollect, about forty years since, that 
 there was a report, that in cleaning the draw-well of that ruinous 
 fortress, the workmen found a skeleton wrapt in a bull's hide, 
 and having a belt of iron round the waist. There was, however, 
 no truth in this rumour. It was the absence of this belt of 
 iron which the Scots founded upon to prove that the body of 
 James could not have fallen into the hands of the English, since 
 they either had not that token to show, or did not produce it. 
 They contended, therefore, that the body over which the enemy 
 triumphed was not that of James himself, but of one of his 
 attendants, several of whom, they said, were dressed in his 
 armour. 
 
 But all these are idle fables, invented and believed because 
 the vulgar love what is mysterious, and the Scots readily gave 
 credit to what tended to deprive their enemies of so signal a 
 trophy of victory. The reports are contrary to common sense.
 
 15*3 
 
 BATTLE OF FLODDEN 229 
 
 Lord Home was the chamberlain of James IV., and high in his 
 confidence. He had nothing whatever to gain by the King's 
 death, and therefore we must acquit him of a great crime, for 
 which there could be no adequate motive. The consequence of 
 James's death proved, in fact, to be the Earl's ruin, as we shall 
 see presently. 
 
 It seems true, that the King usually wore the belt of iron in 
 token of his repentance for his father's death, and the share 
 he had in it. But it is not unlikely that he would lay aside 
 such a cumbrous article of penance in a day of battle ; or the 
 English, when they despoiled his person, may have thrown it 
 aside as of no value. The body which the English affirm to 
 have been that of James was found on the field by Lord 
 Dacre, and carried by him to Berwick, and presented to 
 Surrey. Both of these lords knew James's person too well to 
 be mistaken. The body was also acknowledged by his two 
 favourite attendants, Sir William Scott and Sir John Forinan, 
 who wept at beholding it. 
 
 The fate of these relics were singular and degrading. They 
 were not committed to the tomb, for the Pope, being at that 
 time in alliance with England against France, had laid James 
 under a sentence of excommunication, so that no priest dared 
 to pronounce the funeral service over them. The royal corpse 
 was therefore embalmed, and sent to the Monastery of Sheen, 
 in Surrey. It lay there till the Reformation, when the monas- 
 tery was given to the Duke of Suffolk ; and after that period, 
 the body, which was lapped up in a sheet of lead, was suffered 
 to toss about the house like a piece of useless lumber. Stow, 
 the historian, saw it flung into a waste room among old pieces 
 of wood, lead, and other rubbish. Some idle workmen, " for 
 their foolish pleasure," says the same writer, " hewed off the 
 head ; and one Lancelot Young, master -glazier to Queen 
 Elizabeth, finding a sweet smell come from thence, owing, 
 doubtless, to the spices used for embalming the body, carried 
 the head home, and kept it for some time ; but in the end, 
 caused the sexton of Saint Michael's, Wood Street, to bury it 
 in the charnel-house." 
 
 Such was the end of that King once so proud and powerful. 
 The fatal battle of Flodden, in which he was slain, and his 
 army destroyed, is justly considered as one of the most cala- 
 mitous events in Scottish history.
 
 230 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP, xxv 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 Consequences of the Battle of Flodden Regency of the Queen Dowager The 
 Earl of Angus Albany recalled The Douglases and Hamilton^ 
 Storming of Jedburgh The Duke of Albany's final departure 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England : Henry VIII. 
 France : Louis XII. 
 
 15131524 
 
 THE event of the defeat at Floddeu threw all Scotland into 
 a degree of mourning and despair which is not yet forgotten 
 in the southern counties, on whom a great part of the loss 
 fell, as their inhabitants, soldiers from situation and disposi- 
 tion, composed a considerable portion of the forces which 
 remained with the King's army, and suffered, of course, a great 
 share in the slaughter which took place. The inhabitants of 
 the smaller towns on the Border, as Selkirk, Hawick, Jedburgh, 
 and others, were almost entirely cut off, and their songs and 
 traditions preserve to this day the recollection of their suffer- 
 ings and losses. 
 
 Not only a large proportion of the nobility and of the baron- 
 age, who had by right of birth the important task of distributing 
 justice and maintaining order in their domains, but also the 
 magistrates of the burghs, who, in general, had remained with 
 the army, had fallen on the field ; so that the country seemed 
 to be left open to invasion and conquest, such as had taken 
 place after the loss of the battles of Dunbar and Halidon Hill. 
 Yet the firm courage of the Scottish people was displayed in 
 its noblest colours in this formidable crisis ; all were ready to 
 combat, and more disposed, even from the excess of the cala- 
 mity, to resist than to yield to the fearful consequences which 
 might have been expected. 
 
 Edinburgh, the metropolis, or capital city of Scotland, set a 
 noble example of the conduct which should be adopted under 
 a great national calamity. The provost, bailies, and magis- 
 tracy of that city had been carried by their duty to the battle, 
 in which most of them, with the burghers and citizens who 
 followed their standard, had fallen with the King. A certain
 
 1513 BATTLE OF FLODDEN 231 
 
 number of persons called Presidents, at the head of whom was 
 George Towrs of Inverleith, had been left with a commission 
 to discharge the duty of magistrates during the absence of those 
 to whom the office actually belonged. The battle was fought, 
 as we have said, on the 9th of September. On the 10th, being 
 the succeeding day, the news reached Edinburgh, and George 
 Towrs and the other presidents published on that day a pro- 
 clamation, which would do honour to the annals of any country 
 in Europe. The presidents must have known that all was lost, 
 but they took every necessary precaution to prevent the public 
 from yielding to a hasty and panic alarm, and to prepare with 
 firmness the means of public defence. 
 
 "Whereas," says this remarkable proclamation, "news have 
 arrived, which are yet uncertain, of misfortune which hath 
 befallen the King and his army, we strictly command and 
 charge all persons within the city to have their arms in readi- 
 ness, and to be ready to assemble at the tolling of the common 
 bell of the town, to repel any enemy who may seek to attack 
 the city. We also discharge all women of the lower class, 
 and vagabonds of every description, from appearing on the 
 street to cry and make lamentations ; and we command women 
 of honest fame and character to pass to the churches, and pray 
 for the King and his army, and for our neighbours who are 
 with the King's host." In this way the gallant George Towrs 
 took measures at once for preventing the spreading of terror 
 and confusion by frantic and useless lamentation, and for 
 defence of the city, if need should arise. The simplicity of 
 the order showed the courage and firmness of those who issued 
 it, under the astounding national calamity which had been 
 sustained. 
 
 The Earl of Surrey did not, however, make any endeavour 
 to invade Scotland, or to take any advantage of the great 
 victory he had obtained, by attempting the conquest of that 
 country. Experience had taught the English, that though it 
 might be easy for them to overrun their northern neighbours, 
 to ravage provinces, and to take castles and cities, yet that the 
 obstinate valour of the Scots, and their love of independence, 
 had always, in the long run, found means of expelling the in- 
 vaders. With great moderation and wisdom, Henry, or his 
 ministers, therefore, resolved rather to conciliate the friendship 
 of the Scots, by foregoing the immediate advantages which the
 
 232 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXV 
 
 victory of Flodden afforded them, than to commence another 
 invasion, which, however distressing to Scotland, was likely, as 
 in the Bruce and Baliol wars, to terminate in the English also 
 sustaining great loss, and ultimately being again driven out of 
 the kingdom. The English counsellors remembered that Mar- 
 garet, the widow of James, was the sister of the King of Eng- 
 land that she must become Regent of the kingdom, and would 
 naturally be a friend to her native country. They knew that 
 the late war had been undertaken by the King of Scotland 
 against the wish of his people ; and with noble as well as wise 
 policy, they endeavoured rather to render Scotland once more 
 a friendly power than, by invasion and violence, to convert 
 her into an irreconcilable enemy. The incursions which fol- 
 lowed the battle of Flodden extended only to the Borders ; no 
 great attempt against Scotland was made, or apparently medi- 
 tated. 
 
 Margaret, the Queen Dowager, became Regent of Scotland, 
 and guardian of the young King, James V., who, as had been 
 too often the case on former similar occasions, ascended the 
 throne when a child of not two years old. 
 
 But the authority of Margaret was greatly diminished, and 
 her character injured, by a hasty and imprudent marriage 
 which she formed with Douglas, Earl of Angus, 
 6th itiT st the grandson of old Bell-the-Cat. That celebrated 
 person had not long survived the fatal battle of 
 Flodden, in which both his sons had fallen. His grandson, the 
 inheritor of his great name, was a handsome youth, brave, 
 high-born, and with all the ambition of the old Douglases, as 
 well as with much of their military talents. He was, however, 
 young, rash, and inexperienced ; and his elevation to be the 
 husband of the Queen Regent excited the jealousy and emula- 
 tion of all the other nobles of Scotland, who dreaded the name 
 and the power of the Douglas. 
 
 A peace now took place betwixt France and England, and 
 Scotland was included in the treaty ; but this could hardly be 
 termed fortunate, considering the distracted state of the country, 
 which, freed from English ravages, and no longer restrained 
 by the royal authority, was left to prosecute its domestic feuds 
 and quarrels with the usual bloody aninvsity. The nation, or 
 rather the nobles, disgusted with Margaret's regency, chielly 
 on account of her marrisige with Angus, and that young lord's
 
 1514-16 CONTESTS OF PARTIES 233 
 
 love of personal power, now thought of calling back into Scot- 
 land John, Duke of Albany, son of that Robert who was 
 banished during the reign of James III. This nobleman was 
 the nearest male relation of the King, being the 
 cousin -gennan of his father. The Queen was by 
 many considered as having forfeited the right of 
 regency by her marriage, and Albany, on his arrival from 
 France, was generally accepted in that character. 
 
 John, Duke of Albany, had been born and bred in France, 
 where he had large estates by his mother, a daughter of the 
 Earl of Boulogne ; and he seems always to have preferred the 
 interests of that kingdom to those of Scotland, with which he 
 was only connected by hereditary descent. He was a weak and 
 passionate man, taking up opinions too slightly, and driven out 
 of his resolutions too easily. His courage may justly be sus- 
 pected ; and, if not quite a fool, he was certainly not the wise 
 man whom Scotland required for a governor. He brought 
 over with him, however, a large sum of money from France ; 
 and as his manners were pleasing, his birth high, and his pre- 
 tensions great, he easily got the advantage over Queen Mar- 
 garet, her husband the Earl of Angus, and other lords who 
 favoured her interest. 
 
 After much internal disturbance, Queen Margaret was 
 obliged altogether to retire from Scotland, and to seek refuge 
 at her brother's court, where she bore a daughter, 
 Lady Margaret Douglas, of whom you will hear more 
 hereafter. In the meantime, her party in Scotland 
 was still further weakened. Lord Home was one of her 
 warmest supporters; this was the same nobleman who com- 
 manded the left wing at the battle of Flodden, and was victori- 
 ous on that day, but exposed himself to suspicion by not giving 
 assistance to the other divisions of the Scottish army. He and 
 his brethren were enticed to Edinburgh, and seized upon, tried, 
 and beheaded, upon accusations which are not known. 
 This severity, however, was so far from confirming 
 Albany's power, that it only excited terror and hatred ; 
 and his situation became so difficult, that to his friends in secret 
 he expressed nothing but despair, and wished that he had 
 broken his limbs when he first left his easy and quiet situation 
 in France, to undertake the government of so distracted and 
 unruly a country as Scotland. In fact, he accomplished a
 
 234 TALES Of A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXV 
 
 retreat to France, and during his absence, committed the ward- 
 enry of the Scottish frontiers to a brave French knight, 
 the Chevalier de la Bastie, remarkable for the beauty 
 of his person and the gallantry of his achievements, but 
 destined, as we shall see, to a tragical fate. 
 
 The office of warden had belonged to the Lord Home ; and 
 his friends, numerous, powerful, and inhabiting the eastern 
 frontier, to which the office belonged, were equally desirous to 
 avenge the death of their chief, and to be freed from the 
 dominion of a stranger like De la Bastie, the favourite of 
 Albany, by whose authority Lord Home had been executed. 
 Sir David Home of Wedderburn, one of the fiercest of the name, 
 laid an ambush for the unfortunate warden, near Langton, in 
 Berwickshire. De la Bastie, seeing his life aimed at, was 
 compelled to fly, in the hope of gaining the castle of Dunbar ; 
 but near the town of Dunse his horse stuck fast in a morass. 
 The pursuers came up and put him to death. Sir 
 David Home Bitted the head, by the long locks 
 which the deceased wore, to the mane of his horse, 
 rode with it in triumph to Home Castle, and placed it on a spear 
 on the highest turret. The hair is said to be yet preserved in 
 the charter chest of the family. By this cruel deed Wedder- 
 burn considered himself as doing a brave and gallant action in 
 avenging the death of his chief and kinsman, by putting to 
 death a friend and favourite of the Regent, although it does not 
 appear that De la Bastie had the least concern in Lord Home's 
 execution. 
 
 The decline of Albany's power enabled Queen Margaret and 
 her husband to return to Scotland, leaving their infant daughter 
 in the charge of her maternal uncle, King Henry. But after 
 their return to their own country, the Queen Dowager quarrelled, 
 to an irreconcilable pitch, with her husband Angus, who had 
 seized upon her revenues, paid her little attention or respect, 
 and otherwise gave her much cause for uneasiness. She at 
 length separated from him, and endeavoured to procure a divorce, 
 which she afterwards obtained. By this domestic discord, the 
 power of Angus was considerably diminished ; but he was still 
 one of the first men in Scotland, and might have gained the 
 complete government of the kingdom had not his power been 
 counterbalanced by that of the Earl of Arran. This nobleman 
 was the head of the great family of Hamilton ; he was connected
 
 1517-^0 ANGUS AND ARHAN 235 
 
 with the royal family by blood, and had such extensive posses- 
 sions and lordships as enabled him, though inferior in personal 
 qualities to the Earl of Angus, to dispute with that chief of the 
 more modern Douglases the supreme administration. All, or 
 almost all, the great men of Scotland were in league with one 
 or other of these powerful earls ; each of whom supported those 
 who followed him, in right or wrong, and oppressed those who 
 opposed him, without any form of justice, but merely at his own 
 pleasure. In this distracted state of things, it was impossible 
 for the meanest man in Scotland to obtain success in the best- 
 founded suit, unless he was under the protection either of Angus 
 or Arran, and to whichever he might attach himself, he was sure 
 to become an object of hatred and suspicion to the other. Under 
 pretence, also, of taking a side, and acting for the interests of 
 their party, wicked and lawless men committed violences of 
 every kind, burned, murdered, and plundered, and pretended 
 that they did so in the cause of the Earl of Angus, or of his 
 rival the Earl of Arran. 
 
 At length, on the 30th of April 1520, these two great 
 factions of the Douglases and the Hamiltons came both to 
 Edinburgh to attend a parliament, in which it was expected 
 that the western noblemen would in general take part with 
 Arran, while those of the east would side with Angus. One of 
 the strongest supporters of Arran was the Archbishop of Glasgow, 
 James Beaton, a man remarkable for talents, but unfortunately 
 also for profligacy. He was at this time Chancellor of Scot- 
 land; and the Hamiltons met within his palace, situated at 
 the bottom of Blackfriars Wynd, one of those narrow lanes 
 which run down from the High Street of Edinburgh to the 
 Cowgate. The Hamiltons finding themselves far the more 
 numerous party, were deliberating upon a scheme of attacking 
 the Douglases, and apprehending Angus. That Earl heard of 
 their intentions, and sent his uncle, Gawain Douglas, Bishop of 
 Dunkeld (a scholar and a poet), to remonstrate with Beaton, 
 and to remind him, that it was his business as a churchman to 
 preserve peace ; Angus offering at the same time to withdraw 
 out of the town, if he and his friends should be permitted to 
 do so in safety. The Chancellor had, however, already assumed 
 armour, which he wore under his rochet, or bishop's dress. 
 As he laid his hand on his heart, and said, "Upon my 
 conscience, I cannot help what is about to happen," the mail
 
 236 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXV 
 
 which he wore was heard to rattle. " Ha, my lord ! " said the 
 Bishop of Dunkeld, "I perceive that your conscience is not 
 sound, as appears from its clatters ! " And leaving him after 
 this rebuke, he hastened back to his nephew, the Earl of Angus, 
 to bid him defend himself like a man. "For me," he said, 
 " I will go to my chamber and pray for you." 
 
 Angus collected his followers, and hastened, like a sagacious 
 soldier, to occupy the High Street of the city. The inhabitants 
 were his friends, and epears were handed out to such of the 
 Douglases as had them not ; which proved a great advantage, 
 the Hamiltons having no weapons longer than their swords. 
 
 In the meantime Sir Patrick Hamilton, a wise and moderate 
 man, brother to the Earl of Arran, strongly advised his brother 
 not to come to blows ; but a natural son of the Earl, Sir James 
 Hamilton of Draphane, notorious for his fierce and cruel nature, 
 exclaimed that Sir Patrick only spoke this " because he was 
 afraid to fight in his friend's quarrel." 
 
 " Thou liest, false bastard ! " said Sir Patrick ; " I will fight 
 this day where thou darest not be seen." 
 
 Immediately they all rushed towards the street, where the 
 Douglases stood drawn up to receive them. 
 
 Now the Hamiltons, though very numerous, could only 
 get at their enemies by thronging out of the little steep lanes 
 which open into the High Street, the outlets of which the 
 Douglases had barricaded with carts, barrels, and such like 
 lumber. As the Hamiltons endeavoured to force their way, 
 they were fiercely attacked by the Douglases with pikes and 
 spears. A few who got out on the street were killed or routed. 
 The Earl of Arran, and his son the bastard, were glad to 
 mount upon a coal-horse, from which they threw the load, and 
 escaped by flight. Sir Patrick Hamilton was killed, with 
 many others; thus dying in a scuffle which he had done all 
 in his power to prevent. The confusion was greatly increased 
 by the sudden appearance of Sir David Home of Wedderburn, 
 the fierce Border leader who slew De la Bastie. He came 
 with a band of eight hundred horse to assist Angus, and 
 finding the skirmish begun, made his way into the city by 
 bursting open one of the gates with sledge-hammers. The 
 Hamiltons fled out of the town in great confusion ; and the 
 consequences of this fray were such, that the citizens of 
 Edinburgh called it CUan-the- Causeway, because the faction of
 
 1520 23 STORMING OF JEDBURGH 237 
 
 Arrau was, as it were, swept from the streets. This broil gave 
 Angus a great advantage in his future disputes with Arran ; 
 but it exhibits a wild picture of the times, when such a conflict 
 could be fought in the midst of a populous city. 
 
 A year after this, the Duke of Albany returned from France, 
 to try to reassume the regency. He appears to have been 
 encouraged to take this step by the King of France, who was 
 desirous of recovering his influence in the Scottish councils, 
 and who justly considered Angus as a friend of England. The 
 Regent being successful in again taking up the reins of govern- 
 ment, Angus was in his turn obliged to retire to France, where 
 he spent his time so well that he returned much wiser and 
 more experienced than he had been esteemed before his banish- 
 ment. Albany, on the contrary, showed himself neither more 
 prudent nor more prosperous than during his first government. 
 He threatened much aud did little. He broke the peace with 
 England, and invaded that country with a large army; then 
 made a dishonourable truce with Lord Dacre, who commanded 
 on the English frontier, and finally retired without fighting, 
 or doing anything to support the boasts which he had made. 
 This mean and poor-spirited conduct excited the contempt of 
 the Scottish nation, and the Duke found it necessary to retreat 
 once more to France, that he might obtain money and forces 
 to maintain himself in the regency, which he seemed to occupy 
 rather for the advantage of that country than of Scotland. 
 
 The English, in the meanwhile, maintained the war which 
 Albany had rekindled, by destructive and dangerous incursions 
 on the Scottish frontiers ; and that you may know how this 
 fearful kind of warfare was conducted, I will give you some 
 account of the storming of Jedburgh, which happened at this 
 time. 
 
 Jedburgh was, after the castle and town of Roxburgh had 
 been demolished, the principal town of the county. It was 
 strongly walled, and inhabited by a class of citizens whom 
 their neighbourhood to the English frontier made familiar with 
 war. The town was also situated near those mountains in which 
 the boldest of the Scottish Border clans had their abode. 
 
 The Earl of Surrey (son of him who had vanquished the 
 Scots at Flodden, and who was now Duke of Norfolk) advanced 
 from Berwick to Jedburgh in September 1523, with an army 
 of about ten thousand men. The Border chieftains, on the
 
 238 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXV 
 
 Scottish frontier, could only oppose to this well-appointed army 
 about fifteen or eighteen hundred of their followers ; but they 
 were such gallant soldiers, and so willing to engage in battle, 
 that the brave English general, who had served in foreign 
 countries as well as at home, declared he had never met their 
 equal. " Could forty thousand such men be assembled," 
 said Surrey, "it would be a dreadful enterprise to withstand 
 them." l But the force of numbers prevailed, and the English 
 carried the place by assault. There were six strong towers 
 within the town, which continued their defence after the 
 walls were surmounted. These were the residences of persons 
 of rank, walled round, and capable of strong resistance. The 
 abbey also was occupied by the Scots, and most fiercely 
 defended. The battle continued till late in the night, and the 
 English had no way of completing the victory but by setting 
 fire to the town ; and even in this extremity, those who manned 
 the towers and the abbey continued their defence. The next 
 day Lord Dacre was despatched to attack the castle of 
 Fairniehirst, within about three miles of Jedburgh, the feudal 
 fortress of Sir Andrew Ker, a border chief, formerly mentioned. 
 It was taken, but with great loss to the besiegers. In the 
 evening Lord Dacre, contrary to Surrey's commands, chose to 
 encamp with his cavalry without the limits of the camp which 
 the latter had chosen. About eight at night, when the English 
 leaders were at supper, and concluded all resistance over, 
 Dacre's quarters were attacked, and his horses all cut loose. 
 The terrified animals, upwards of fifteen hundred in number, 
 came galloping down to Surrey's camp, where they were 
 received with showers of arrows and volleys of musketry ; for 
 the English soldiers, alarmed by the noise, thought the Scots 
 were storming their intrenchments, and shot off their shafts at 
 hazard. Many of the horses ran into Jedburgh, which was 
 still in flames, and were seized and carried off by the Scottish 
 women, accustomed like their husbands to the management of 
 these useful animals. The tumult was so great that the 
 English imputed it to supernatural interference, and Surrey 
 alleged that the devil was seen visibly six times during the 
 
 1 " Surrey to Cardinal Wolsey and who adds, ' I assure your grace I 
 found the Scots, at this time, the boldest men and the hotest, that ever I 
 sawe any nacion.' The praise from Surrey is great, as he had often been 
 employed on severe foreign service." PJNKBRTON.
 
 1523-4 DEPARTURE OF ALBANY 239 
 
 confusion. Such was the credulity of the times ; but the 
 whole narrative may give you some notion of the obstinate 
 defence of the Scots, and the horrors of a Border foray. 
 
 The Scots, on their side, were victorious in several severe 
 actions, in one of which the Bastard Heron, who had contributed 
 so much to Surrey's success at Flodden, was slain. 
 
 The young King of Scotland, though yet a boy, began to 
 show tokens of ill-will towards the French and Albany. Some 
 nobles asked him what should be done with the French, whom 
 the Regent had left behind. " Give them," said James, " to 
 Davie Home's keeping." Sir David Home, you must recollect, 
 was the chieftain who put to death Albany's friend, De la 
 Bastie, and knitted his head by the hair to his saddlebow. 
 
 Albany, however, returned again from France with great 
 supplies of money, artillery, arms, and other provisions for 
 continuing the war. These were furnished by France, because 
 it was the interest of that country at all hazards to maintain 
 the hostility between Scotland and England. The Regent once 
 more, with a fine army, made an attack upon Norham, a castle 
 on the English frontier ; but when he had nearly gained this 
 fortress, he suddenly, with his usual cowardice, left off the 
 assault, on learning that Surrey was advancing to its relief. 
 After this second dishonourable retreat, Albany left Scotland, 
 detested and despised alike by the nobles and the common 
 people, who felt that all his undertakings had ended in retreat 
 and disgrace. In the month of May 1524 he took leave of 
 Scotland, never to return. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 Angus' 'a Accession to the Government Buccleuch and Lennox Escape 
 of James Banishment of Angus, and the rest of the Douglases 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England'. Henry VIII. 
 France : Francis I. 
 
 15241528 
 
 QUEEN MARGARET, who hated her husband Angus, as I have 
 told you, now combined with his enemy Arran to call Jamea
 
 240 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXVI 
 
 V., her son (though then only twelve years old), to the manage- 
 ment of the public affaire ; but the Earl of Angus, returning 
 at this crisis from France, speedily obtained a superiority in 
 the Scottish councils, and became the head of those nobles who 
 desired to maintain a friendly alliance with England rather than 
 to continue that league with France which had so often in- 
 volved Scotland in quarrels with their powerful neighbour. 
 
 Margaret might have maintained her authority, for she was 
 personally much beloved ; but it was the fate or the folly of 
 that Queen to form rash marriages. Like her brother Henry 
 of England, who tired of his wives, Margaret seems to have 
 been addicted to tire of her husbands ; but she had not the 
 power of cutting the heads from the spouses whom she desired 
 to be rid of. Having obtained a divorce from Angus, she 
 married a young man of little power and inferior rank, named 
 Henry Stewart, a younger son of Lord Evandale. She lost 
 her influence by that ill-advised measure. Angus, therefore, 
 rose to the supreme authority in Scotland, obtained possession 
 of the person of the King, transacted everything in the name 
 of James, but by his own authority, and became in all respects 
 the Regent of Scotland, though without assuming the name. 
 
 The talents of the Earl of Angus were equal to the charge 
 he had assumed, and as he reconciled himself to his old rival 
 the Earl of Arran, his power seemed founded on a sure basis. 
 He was able to accomplish a treaty of peace with England, 
 which was of great advantage to the kingdom. But, according 
 to the fashion of the times, Angus was much too desirous to 
 confer all the great offices, lands, and other advantages in the 
 disposal of the crown, upon his own friends and adherents, to 
 the exclusion of all the nobles and gentry, who had either 
 taken part against him in the late struggle for power, or were 
 not decidedly his partisans. The course of justice also was 
 shamefully perverted, by the partiality of Angus for hia friends, 
 kinsmen, and adherents. 
 
 An old historian says, " That there dared no man strive at 
 law with a Douglas, or yet with the adherent of a Douglas ; for 
 if he did, he was sure to get the worst of his law-suit. And," 
 he adds, " although Angus travelled through the country under 
 the pretence of punishing thieves, robbers, and murderers, 
 there were no malefactors so great as those which rode in his 
 own company."
 
 1524-6 RESTRAINT OF JAMES V 241 
 
 The King, who was now fourteen years old, became dis- 
 gusted with the sort of restraint in which Angus detained him, 
 and desirous to free himself from his tutelage. His mother 
 had doubtless a natural influence over him, and that likewise 
 was exerted to the Earl's prejudice. The Earl of Lennox, a 
 wise and intelligent nobleman, near in blood to the King, was 
 also active in fostering his displeasure against the Douglases, 
 and schemes began to be agitated for taking the person of the 
 King out of the hands of Angus. But Angus was so well 
 established in the government, that his authority could not be 
 destroyed except by military force ; and it was not easy to bring 
 such to bear against one so powerfid, and of such a martial 
 character. 
 
 At length it seems to have been determined to employ the 
 agency of Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch, a man of great cour- 
 age and military talent, head of a numerous and powerful 
 clan, and possessed of much influence on the Border. He 
 had been once the friend of Angus, and had even scaled the 
 walls of Edinburgh with a great body of his clan, in order to 
 render the party of the Earl uppermost in that city. But of 
 late he had attached himself to Lennox, by whose counsel he 
 seems to have been guided in the enterprise which I am about 
 to give you an account of. 
 
 Some excesses had taken place on the Border, probably by 
 the connivance of Buccleuch, which induced Angus to march 
 to Jedburgh, bringing the King in his company, lest he should 
 have made his escape during his absence. He was joined by 
 the clans of Home and Ker, both in league with him, and he 
 had, besides, a considerable body of chosen attendants. Angus 
 was returning from this expedition, and had passed the night 
 at Melrose. The Kers and Homes had taken leave of the 
 Earl, who with the King and his retinue had left Melrose, 
 when a band of a thousand horsemen suddenly appeared on 
 the side of an eminence called Halidon Hill, and, descending 
 into the valley, interposed between the Earl and the bridge, 
 by which he must pass the Tweed on his return northward. 
 
 " Sir," said Angus to the King, " yonder comes Buccleuch, 
 with the Border thieves of Teviotdale and Liddesdale, to interrupt 
 your Grace's passage. I vow to God they shall either fight or fly. 
 You shall halt upon this knoll with my brother George, while 
 we drive off these banditti, and clear the road for your Grace." 
 
 16
 
 242 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXVI 
 
 The King made no answer, for in his heart he desired that 
 Buccleuch's undertaking might be successful ; but he dared not 
 say so. 
 
 Angus, meantime, despatched a herald to charge Buccleuch 
 to withdraw with his forces. Scott replied, "That he was 
 come, according to the custom of the Borders, to show the 
 King his clan and followers, and invite his Grace to dine at his 
 house." To which he added, " That he knew the King's mind 
 as well as Angus." The Earl advanced, and the Borderers, 
 shouting their war-cry of Bellenden, immediately joined battle, 
 and fought stoutly ; but the Homes and Kers, who were at 
 no great distance, returned on hearing the alarm, and coming 
 through the little village of Darnick, set upon Buccleuch's 
 men, and decided the fate of the day. The Border riders fled, 
 but Buccleuch and his followers fought bravely in their re- 
 treat, and turning upon the Kers, slew several of them ; in 
 particular, Ker of Cessford, a chief of the name, who was killed 
 by the lance of one of the Elliots, a retainer of Buccleuch. 
 His death occasioned a deadly feud between the clans of Scott 
 and Ker, which lasted for a century, and cost much blood. 
 This skirmish took place on the 25th of July 1526. About 
 eighty Scots were slain on the field of battle, and a sentence 
 was pronounced against Buccleuch and many of his clan, as 
 guilty of high treason. But after the King had shaken off the 
 yoke of the Douglases, he went in person to Parliament to 
 obtain the restoration of Buccleuch, who, he declared on his 
 kingly word, had come to Melrose without any purpose of 
 quarrel, but merely to pay his duty to his prince, and show 
 him the number of his followers. In evidence of which the 
 King affirmed that the said Wat was not clad in armour, but 
 in a leathern coat (a buff-coat, I suppose), with a black bonnet 
 on his head. The family were restored to their estates accord- 
 ingly ; but Sir Walter Scott was long afterwards murdered by 
 the Kers, at Edinburgh, in revenge of the death of the Laird 
 of Cessford. 
 
 The Earl of Lennox being disappointed in procuring the 
 King's release by means of Buccleuch, now resolved to attempt 
 it in person. He received much encouragement from the 
 Chancellor Beaton (distinguished at the skirmish called Clean- 
 the-Causeway), from the Earl of Glencairn, and other noble- 
 men, who saw with displeasure the Earl of Angus keeping the
 
 1526 RESTRAINT OF JAMES V 243 
 
 young King under restraint, and that all the administration of 
 the kingdom centred in the Douglases. Lennox assembled 
 au army of ten or twelve thousand men, and advanced upon 
 Edinburgh from Stirling. Angus and Arran, who were still 
 closely leagued together, encountered Lennox, with an inferior 
 force, near the village of Newliston. The rumour that a 
 battle was about to commence soon reached Edinburgh, when 
 Sir George Douglas hastened to call out the citizens in arms, 
 to support his brother, the Earl of Angus. The city bells 
 were rung, trumpets were sounded, and the King himself was 
 obliged to mount on horseback, to give countenance to the 
 measures of the Douglases, whom in his soul he detested. 
 James was so sensible of his situation, that he tried by every 
 means in his power to delay the march of the forces which 
 were mustered at Edinburgh. When they reached the village 
 of Corstorphine, they heard the thunder of the guns ; which 
 inflamed the fierce impatience of George Douglas to reach the 
 field of battle, and also increased the delays of the young King, 
 who was in hopes Angus might be defeated before his brother 
 could come up. Douglas, perceiving this, addressed the King 
 in language which James never forgot nor forgave ; " Your 
 Grace need not think to escape us," said this fierce warrior ; 
 " if our enemies had hold of you on one side, and we on the 
 other, we would tear you to pieces ere we would let you go." 
 
 Tidings now came from the field of battle that Lennox had 
 been defeated, and that Angus had gained the victory. The 
 young King, dismayed at the news, now urged his attendants 
 to gallop forward, as much as he had formerly desired them 
 to hang back. He charged them to prevent slaughter, and 
 save lives, especially that of Lennox. Sir Andrew Wood, one 
 of the King's cup-bearers, arrived in the field of battle time 
 enough to save the Earl of Glencairn, who, protected by some 
 strong ground, was still fighting gallantly, though he had 
 scarce thirty men left alive ; and Wood contrived to convey 
 him safe out of the field. But Lennox, about whose safety 
 the King was so anxious, was already no more. He had been 
 slain, in cold blood, by that bloodthirsty man, Sir James 
 Hamilton of Draphane, who took him from the Laird of Par- 
 divan, to whom he had surrendered himself. This deed seemed 
 to flow from the brutal nature of the perpetrator, who took such 
 a pleasure in shedding blood that he slashed with his own
 
 244 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXVI 
 
 hand the faces of many of the prisoners. Arran, the father 
 of this ferocious man, bitterly lamented the fate of Lennox, 
 who was his nephew. He was found mourning beside the 
 body, over which he had spread his scarlet cloak. "The 
 hardiest, stoutest, and wisest man that Scotland bore," he said, 
 " lies here slain." 
 
 After these two victories, the Earl of Angus seemed to be 
 so firmly established in power that his followers set no bounds 
 to their presumption, and his enemies were obliged to fly and 
 hide themselves. Chancellor Beaton, disguised as a shepherd, 
 fed sheep on Bogrian-kno'we, until he made his peace with the 
 Earls of Angus and Arran, by great gifts, both in money and 
 in church lands. Angus established around the King's person 
 a guard of a hundred men of his own choice, commanded by 
 Douglas of Parkhead; he made his brother George, whom 
 James detested, Master of the Royal Household ; and Archi 
 bald of Kilspindie, his uncle, Lord Treasurer of the Realm. 
 But the close restraint in which the King found himself only 
 increased his eager desire to be rid of all the Douglases to- 
 gether. Force having failed in two instances, James had 
 recourse to stratagem. 
 
 He prevailed on his mother, Queen Margaret, to yield up to 
 him the castle of Stirling, which was her jointure-house, and 
 secretly to put it into the hands of a governor whom he could 
 trust. This was done with much caution. Thus prepared 
 with a place of refuge, James watched with anxiety an oppor- 
 tunity of flying to it; and he conducted himself with such 
 apparent confidence towards Angus, that the Douglases were 
 lulled into security, and concluded that the King was reconciled 
 to his state of bondage, and had despaired of making his escape. 
 
 James was then residing at Falkland, a royal palace con- 
 veniently situated for hunting and hawking, in which he seemed 
 to take great pleasure. The Earl of Angus at this period left 
 the court for Lothian, where he had some urgent business 
 Archibald Douglas of Kilspindie went to Dundee, to visit a 
 lady to whom he was attached and George Douglas had gone 
 to St. Andrews to extort some further advantages from Chan- 
 cellor Beaton, who was now archbishop of that see, and primate 
 of Scotland. There was thus none of the Douglases left 
 about the King's person except Parkhead, with his guard of 
 one hundred men, in whose vigilance the others confided.
 
 1528 ESCAPE OF JAMES V 245 
 
 The King thought the time favourable for his escape. To 
 lay all suspicion asleep, he pretended he was to rise next morn- 
 ing at an early hour, for the purpose of hunting the stag. 
 Douglas of Parkhead, suspecting nothing, retired to bed after 
 placing his watch. But the King was no sooner in his private 
 chamber than he called a trusty page, named John Hart : 
 " Jockie," said he, "dost thou love me 1 ?" 
 
 " Better than myself," answered the domestic. 
 
 " And will you risk anything for me?" 
 
 " My life, with pleasure," said John Hart. 
 
 The King then explained his purpose, and dressing himself 
 in the attire of a groom, he went with Hart to the stable, as if 
 for the purpose of getting the horses ready for the next day's 
 hunt. The guards, deceived by their appearance, gave them no 
 interruption. At the stables three good horses were saddled 
 and in readiness, under charge of a yeoman, or groom, whom 
 the King had entrusted with his design. 
 
 James mounted with his two servants, and galloped, during 
 the whole night, as eager as a bird just escaped from a cage. 
 At daylight he reached the bridge of Stirling, which 
 was the only mode of passing the river Forth, except by ^I. 
 boats. It was defended by gates, which the King, 
 after passing through them, ordered to be closed, and directed 
 the passage to be watched. He was a weary man when he 
 reached Stirling Castle, where he was joyfully received by the 
 governor, whom his mother had placed in that strong fortress. 
 The drawbridges were raised, the portcullises dropt, guards set, 
 and every measure of defence and precaution resorted to. But 
 the King was so much afraid of again falling into the hands of 
 the Douglases, that, tired as he was, he would not go to sleep 
 until the keys of the castle were placed in his own keeping, 
 and laid underneath his pillow. 
 
 In the morning there was great alarm at Falkland. Sir 
 George Douglas had returned thither, on the night of the 
 King's departure, about eleven o'clock. On his arrival, he 
 inquired after the King, and was answered by the porter as 
 well as the watchmen upon guard that he was sleeping in his 
 chamber, as he intended to hunt early in the morning. Sir 
 George therefore retired to rest in full security. But the next 
 morning he learned different tidings. One Peter Carmichael, 
 bailie of Abernethy, knocked at the door of his chamber, and
 
 246 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXVI 
 
 asked him if he knew " what the King was doing that morn- 
 ing 1" 
 
 " He is in his chamber asleep," said Sir George. 
 
 " You are mistaken," answered Carmichael ; " he passed the 
 bridge of Stirling this last night." 
 
 On hearing this, Douglas started up in haste, went to the 
 King's chamber, and knocked for admittance. When no answer 
 was returned, he caused the door to be forced, and when he 
 found the apartment empty, he cried, " Treason ! The King 
 is gone, and none knows whither." Then he sent post to his 
 brother, the Earl of Angus, and despatched messengers in every 
 direction, to seek the King, and to assemble the Douglases. 
 
 When the truth became known, the adherents of Angus 
 rode in a body to Stirling ; but the King was so far from desir- 
 ing to receive them, that he threatened, by sound of trumpet, 
 to declare any of the name of Douglas a traitor who should 
 approach within twelve miles of his person, or who should pre- 
 sume to meddle with the administration of government. Some 
 of the Douglases inclined to resist this proclamation ; but the 
 Earl of Angus and his brother resolved to obey it, and with- 
 drew to Linlithgow. 
 
 Soon afterwards, the King assembled around him the numer- 
 ous nobility who envied the power of Angus and Arran, or 
 had suffered injuries at their hands ; and, in open parliament, 
 accused them of treason, declaring that he had never been sure 
 of his life all the while that he was in their power. A sen- 
 tence of forfeiture was, therefore, passed against the Earl of 
 Angus, and he was driven into exile, with all his friends and 
 kinsmen. And thus the Red Douglases, of the house of 
 Angus, shared almost the same fate with the Black Douglases, 
 of the elder branch of that mighty house ; with this difference, 
 that as they had never risen so high, so they did not fall so irre- 
 trievably ; for the Earl of Angus lived to return and enjoy his 
 estates in Scotland, where he again played a distinguished part. 
 But this was not till after the death of James V., who retained, 
 during his whole life, an implacable resentment against the 
 Douglases, and never permitted one of the name to settle in 
 Scotland while he lived. 
 
 James persevered in this resolution even under circum- 
 stances which rendered his unrelenting resentment ungenerous. 
 Archibald Douglas of Kilspindie, the Earl of Angus's uncle,
 
 1528 THE DOUGLASES BANISHED 247 
 
 had been a personal favourite of the King before the disgrace 
 of his family. He was so much recommended to James by his 
 great strength, manly appearance, and skill in every kind of 
 warlike exercise, that he was wont to call him his Graysteil, 
 after the name of a champion in a romance then popular. 
 Archibald, becoming rather an old man, and tired of his exile 
 in England, resolved to try the King's mercy. He thought 
 that as they had been so well acquainted formerly, and as he 
 had never offended James personally, he might find favour 
 from their old intimacy. He therefore threw himself in the 
 King's way one day as he returned from hunting in the park 
 at Stirling. It was several years since James had seen him, 
 but he knew him at a great distance, by his firm and stately 
 step, and said, "Yonder is my Graysteil, Archibald of Kil- 
 spindie." But when they met, he showed no appearance of 
 recognising his old servant. Douglas turned, and still hoping 
 to obtain a glance of favourable recollection, ran along by 
 the King's side; and although James trotted his horse hard 
 against the hill, and Douglas wore a heavy shirt of mail under 
 his clothes, for fear of assassination, yet Graysteil was at the 
 castle gate as soon as the King. James passed him, and en- 
 tered the castle; but Douglas, exhausted with exertion, sat 
 down at the gate and asked for a cup of wine. The hatred of 
 the King against the name of Douglas was so well known, that 
 no domestic about the court dared procure for the old warrior 
 even this trifling refreshment. The King blamed, indeed, his 
 servants for their discourtesy, and even said, that but for his 
 oath never to employ a Douglas, he would have received Archi- 
 bald of Kilspindie into his service, as he had formerly known 
 him a man of great ability. Yet he sent his commands to his 
 poor Graysteil to retire to France, where he died heart-broken 
 soon afterwards. Even Henry VIII. of England, himself of 
 an unforgiving temper, blamed the implacability of James on 
 this occasion, and quoted an old proverb, 
 
 "A King's face 
 Should give grace."
 
 248 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXVII 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 Character of James V. His Expedition to punish the Border Free- 
 booters His Adventures Rustic Hunting Palace in AthoU Insti- 
 tution of the College of Justice Gold- Alines of Scotland. 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England-. Henry VIII. 
 France : Francis I. 
 
 1528 1540 
 
 FREED from the stern coutrol of the Douglas family, James 
 V. now began to exercise the government in person, and dis- 
 played most of the qualities of a wise and good prince. He 
 was handsome in his person, and resembled his father in the 
 fondness for military exercises, and the spirit of chivalrous 
 honour which James IV. loved to display. He also inherited 
 his father's love of justice, and his desire to establish and en- 
 force wise and equal laws, which should protect the weak 
 against the oppression of the great It was easy enough to 
 make laws, but to put them in vigorous exercise was of much 
 greater difficulty ; and in his attempt to accomplish this laud- 
 able purpose, James often incurred the ill-will of the more 
 powerful nobles. He was a well-educated and accomplished 
 man ; and like his ancestor, James I., was a poet and a musi- 
 cian. He had, however, his defects. He avoided his father's 
 failing of profusion, having no hoarded treasures to employ on 
 pomp and show; but he rather fell into the opposite fault, 
 being of a temper too parsimonious ; and though he loved state 
 and display, he endeavoured to gratify that taste as economi- 
 cally as possible, so that he has been censured as rather close 
 and covetous. He was also, though the foibles seem incon- 
 sistent, fond of pleasure, and disposed to too much indulgence. 
 It must be added, that when provoked, he was unrelenting 
 even to cruelty ; for which he had some apology, considering 
 the ferocity of the subjects over whom he reigned. But, 
 on the whole, James V. was an amiable man, and a good 
 sovereign. 
 
 His first care was to bring the Borders of Scotland to some 
 degree of order. These, as you were formerly told, were
 
 1528-9 STATE OF BORDERS 249 
 
 inhabited by tribes of men, forming each a different clan, as 
 they were called, and obeying no orders, save those j^ 1529 
 which were given by their chiefs. These chiefs 
 . were supposed to represent the first founder of the name, or 
 family. The attachment of the clansmen to the chief was 
 very great : indeed, they paid respect to no one else. In this 
 the Borderers agreed with the Highlanders, as also in their 
 love of plunder, and neglect of the general laws of the country. 
 But the Border meu wore no tartan dress, and served 
 almost always on horseback, whereas the Highlanders acted 
 always on foot. You will also remember that the Borderers 
 spoke the Scottish language, and not the Gaelic tongue used 
 by the mountaineers. 
 
 The situation of these clans on the frontiers exposed them 
 to constant war ; so that they thought of nothing else but of 
 collecting bands of their followers together, and making in- 
 cursions, without much distinction, on the English, on the 
 Lowland (or inland) Scots, or upon each other. They paid 
 little respect either to times of truce or treaties of peace, but 
 exercised their depredations without regard to either, and often 
 occasioned wars betwixt England and Scotland which would 
 not otherwise have taken place. 
 
 It is said of a considerable family on the Borders, that when 
 they had consumed all the cattle about the castle, a pair of 
 spurs was placed on the table in a covered dish, as a hint that 
 they must ride out and fetch more. The chiefs and leading 
 men told down their daughters' portions according to the 
 plunder which they were able to collect in the course of a 
 Michaelmas moon, when its prolonged light allowed them 
 opportunity for their freebooting excursions. They were very 
 brave in battle, but in time of peace they were a pest to their 
 Scottish neighbours. As their insolence had risen to a high 
 pitch after the field of Flodden had thrown the country into 
 confusion, James V. resolved to take very severe measures 
 against them. 
 
 His first step was to secure the persons of the principal 
 chieftains by whom these disorders were privately encouraged. 
 The Earl of Bothwell, the Lord Home, Lord Maxwell, Scott 
 of Buccleuch, Ker of Fairniehirst, and other powerful chiefs, 
 who might have opposed the King's purposes, were seized, 
 and imprisoned in separate fortresses in the inland country.
 
 250 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CIIAP. XXVll 
 
 James then assembled an army, in which warlike purposes 
 
 were united with those of silvan sport ; for he ordered all the 
 
 gentlemen in the wild districts which he intended 
 
 6 ' to visit to bring in their best dogs, as if his only 
 
 purpose had been to hunt the deer in those desolate regions. 
 
 This was intended to prevent the Borderers from taking the 
 
 alarm, in which case they would have retreated into their 
 
 mountains and fastnesses, from whence it would have been 
 
 difficult to dislodge them. 
 
 These men had indeed no distinct idea of the offences which 
 they had committed, and consequently no apprehension of the 
 King's displeasure against them. The laws had been so long 
 silent in that remote and disorderly country, that the outrages 
 which were practised by the strong against the weak seemed 
 to the perpetrators the natural course of society, and to present 
 nothing that was worthy of punishment. 
 
 Thus, as the King, in the beginning of his expedition, 
 suddenly approached the castle of Piers Cockburn of Henderland, 
 that baron was in the act of providing a great entertainment 
 to welcome him, when James caused him to be suddenly 
 seized on, and executed. Adam Scott of Tushielaw, called the 
 King of the Border, met the same fate. But an event of 
 greater importance was the fate of John Armstrong of Gil- 
 nockie, near Langholm. 
 
 This freebooting chief had risen to great consequence, and 
 the whole neighbouring district of England paid him black 
 mail, that is, a sort of tribute, in consideration of which he 
 forbore plundering them. He had a high idea of his own im- 
 portance, and seems to have been unconscious of having 
 merited any severe usage at the King's hands. On the con- 
 trary, he came to meet his sovereign at a place about ten miles 
 from Hawick, called Carlinrigg chapel, richly dressed, and 
 having with him twenty-four gentlemen, his constant retinue, 
 as well attired as himself. The King, incensed to see a free- 
 booter so gallantly equipped, commanded him instantly to be 
 led to execution, saying, " What wants this knave, save a 
 crown, to be as magnificent as a king 1 ?" John Armstrong 
 made great offers for his life, offering to maintain himself, with 
 forty men, ready to serve the King at a moment's notice, at 
 his own expense ; engaging never to hurt or injure any Scottish 
 bubject, as indeed had never been his practice ; and undertaking
 
 1529-31 STATE OF BORDERS 251 
 
 that there was not a man in England, of whatever degree, 
 duke, earl, lord, or baron, but he would engage, within a short 
 time, to present him to the King, dead or alive. But when 
 the King would listen to none of his offers, the robber chief 
 said very proudly, " I am but a fool to ask grace at a grace- 
 less face ; but had I guessed you would have used me thus, I 
 would have kept the Border-side, in despite of the King of 
 England and you both ; for I well know that King Henry 
 would give the weight of my best horse in gold to know that 
 I am sentenced to die this day." 
 
 John Armstrong was led to execution, with all his men, 
 and hanged without mercy. The people of the inland counties 
 were glad to be rid of him ; but on the Borders he was both 
 missed and mourned, as a brave warrior, and a stout man-at- 
 arms against England. 
 
 Such were the effects of the terror struck by these general 
 executions, that James was said to have made " the rush bush 
 keep the cow ; " that is to say, that even in this lawless part 
 of the country, men dared no longer make free with property, 
 and cattle might remain on their pastures unwatched. James 
 was also enabled to draw profit from the lands which the crown 
 possessed near the Borders, and is said to have had ten thou- 
 sand sheep at one time grazing in Ettrick Forest, under the 
 keeping of one Andrew Bell, who gave the King as good an 
 account of the profits of the flock as if they had been grazing 
 in the bounds of Fife, then the most civilised part of Scotland. 
 
 On the other hand, the Borders of Scotland were greatly 
 weakened by the destruction of so many brave men, who, not- 
 withstanding their lawless course of life, were true defenders 
 of their country ; and there is reason to censure the extent to 
 which James carried his severity, as being to a certain degree 
 impolitic, and beyond doubt cruel and excessive. 
 
 In the like manner James proceeded against the Highland 
 chiefs ; and by executions, forfeitures, and other severe mea- 
 sures, he brought the Northern mountaineers, as he had already 
 done those of the South, into comparative subjection. He 
 then set at liberty the Border chiefs, and others whom he had 
 imprisoned, lest they should have offered any hindrance to the 
 course of his justice. 
 
 As these fiery chieftains, after this severe chastisement, 
 could no longer as formerly attack each other's castles and
 
 252 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXVll 
 
 lands, they were forced to vent their deadly animosities in 
 duels, which were frequently fought in the King's presence, 
 his royal permission being first obtained. Thus Douglas of 
 Drumlanrig and Charteris of Amisfield did battle together in 
 presence of the King, each having accused the other of high 
 treason. They fought on foot with huge two-handed swords. 
 Drumlanrig was somewhat blind, or short-sighted, and being 
 in great fury, struck about him without seeing where he hit, 
 and the Laird of Amisfield was not more successful, for his 
 sword broke in the encounter ; upon this, the King caused the 
 battle to cease, and the combatants were with difficulty 
 separated. Thus the King gratified these unruly barons, by 
 permitting them to fight in his own presence, in order to induce 
 them to remain at peace elsewhere. 
 
 James V. had a custom of going about the country disguised 
 as a private person, in order that he might hear complaints 
 which might not otherwise reach his ears, and perhaps, that 
 he might enjoy amusements which he could not have partaken 
 of in his avowed royal character. This is also said to have 
 been a custom of James IV., his father, and several adventures 
 are related of what befell them on such occasions. One or two 
 of these narratives may help to enliven our story. 
 
 When James V. travelled in disguise, he used a name which 
 was known only to some of his principal nobility and attend- 
 ants. He was called the Goodman (the tenant, that is) of 
 Ballengiech. Ballengiech is a steep pass which leads down 
 behind the castle of Stirling. Once upon a time, when the 
 court was feasting in Stirling, the King sent for some venison 
 from the neighbouring hills. The deer were killed, and put on 
 horses' backs to be transported to Stirling. Unluckily they 
 had to pass the castle gates of Arnpryor, belonging to a chief 
 of the Buchanans, who chanced to have a considerable number 
 of guests with him. It was late, and the company were rather 
 short of victuals, though they had more than enough of liquor. 
 The chief, seeing so much fat venison passing his very door, 
 seized on it; and to the expostulations of the keepers, who 
 told him it belonged to King James, he answered insolently, 
 that if James was King in Scotland, he, Buchanan, was King 
 in Kippen ; being the name of the district in which the castle 
 of Arnpryor lay. On hearing what had happened, the King 
 got on horseback, and rode instantly from Stirling to Buch-
 
 1531-3 ADVENTURES OF JAMES V. 253 
 
 anan's house, where he found a strong fierce-looking Highlander, 
 with an axe on his shoulder, standing sentinel at the door. 
 This grim warder refused the King admittance, saying, 
 that the laird of Arnpryor was at dinner, and would not be 
 disturbed. "Yet go up to the company, my good friend," 
 said the King, " and tell him that the Goodman of Ballengiech 
 is come to feast with the King of Kippen." The porter went 
 grumbling into the house, and told his master that there was 
 a fellow with a red beard at the gate, who called himself the 
 Goodman of Ballengiech, who said he was come to dine with 
 the King of Kippen. As soon as Buchanan heard these words, 
 he knew that the King was come in person, and hastened 
 down to kneel at James's feet, and to ask forgiveness for his 
 insolent behaviour. But the King, who only meant to give him 
 a fright, forgave him freely, and, going into the castle, feasted 
 on his own venison which Buchanan had intercepted. Buchanan 
 of Arnpryor was ever afterwards called the King of Kippen. 
 
 Upon another occasion, King James, being alone and in dis- 
 guise, fell into a quarrel with some gypsies, or other vagrants, 
 and was assaulted by four or five of them. This chanced to be 
 very near the bridge of Cramond ; so the King got on the 
 bridge, which, as it was high and narrow, enabled him to 
 defend himself with his sword against the number of persons by 
 whom he was attacked. There was a poor man thrashing corn 
 in a barn near by, who came out on hearing the noise of the 
 scuffle, and seeing one man defending himself against numbers, 
 gallantly took the King's part with his flail, to such good pur- 
 pose that the gypsies were obliged to fly. The husbandman 
 then took the King into the barn, brought him a towel and 
 water to wash the blood from his face and hands, and finally 
 walked with him a little way towards Edinburgh, in case he 
 should be again attacked. On the way, the King asked his 
 companion what and who he was. The labourer answered, that 
 his name was John Howieson, and that he was a bondsman on 
 the farm of Braehead, near Cramond, which belonged to the 
 King of Scotland. James then asked the poor man if there 
 was any wish in the world which he would particularly desire 
 should be gratified ; and honest John confessed he should think 
 himself the happiest man in Scotland were he but proprietor of 
 the farm on which he wrought as a labourer. He then asked 
 the King, in turn, who /ie was; and James replied, as usual,
 
 254 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP XXVli 
 
 that he was the Goodman of Ballengiech, a poor man who had 
 a small appointment about the palace ; but he added, that if 
 John Howieson would come to see him on the next Sunday, he 
 would endeavour to repay his manful assistance, and, at least, 
 give him the pleasure of seeing the royal apartments. 
 
 John put on his best clothes, as you may suppose, and 
 appearing at a postern gate of the palace, inquired for the 
 Goodman of Ballengiech. The King had given orders that he 
 should be admitted ; and John found his friend, the goodman, 
 in the same disguise which he had formerly worn. The King, 
 still preserving the character of an inferior officer of the house- 
 hold, conducted John Howieson from one apartment of the 
 palace to another, and was amused with his wonder and his 
 remarks. At length James asked his visitor if he should like 
 to see the King ; to which John replied, nothing would delight 
 him so much, if he could do so without giving offence. The 
 Goodman of Ballengiech, of course, undertook that the King 
 would not be angry, " But," said John, " how am I to know his 
 Grace from the nobles who will be all about him ?" " Easily," 
 replied his companion ; " all the others will be uncovered the 
 King alone will wear his hat or bonnet." 
 
 So speaking, King James introduced the countryman into a 
 great hall, which was filled by the nobility and officers of the crown. 
 John was a little frightened, and drew close to his attendant ; 
 but was still unable to distinguish the King. " I told you that 
 you should know him by his wearing his hat," said the conductor. 
 " Then," said John, after he had again looked round the room, " it 
 must be either you or me, for all but us two are bare-headed." 
 
 The King laughed at John's fancy ; and that the good yeo- 
 man might have occasion for mirth also, he made him a present 
 of the farm of Braehead, which he had wished so much to possess, 
 on condition that John Howieson, or bis successors, should be 
 ready to present a ewer and basin for the King to wash his 
 hands, when his Majesty should come to Holyrood Palace, or 
 should pass the bridge of Cramond. Accordingly, in the year 
 1822, when George IV. came to Scotland, the descendant l of 
 John Howieson of Braehead, who still possesses the estate 
 which was given to his ancestor, appeared at a solemn festival, 
 and offered his Majesty water from a silver ewer, that he might 
 perform the service by which he held his lands. 
 
 1 William Howieson Crawford, Esq., of Bniehwul and Crawford-land.
 
 I53I-3 
 
 RUSTIC PALACK 255 
 
 James V. was very fond of huuting, and, when he pursued 
 that amusement in the Highlands, he used to wear the peculiar 
 dress of that country, having a long and wide Highland shirt, 
 and a jacket of tartan velvet, with plaid hose, and everything 
 else corresponding. The accounts for these are in the books of 
 his chamberlain, still preserved. 
 
 On one occasion, when the King had an ambassador of the 
 Pope along with him, with various foreigners of distinction, 
 they were splendidly entertained by the Earl of Athole 
 in a huge and singular rustic palace. It was built of ] 
 timber, in the midst of a great meadow, and surrounded by 
 moats, or fosses, full of the most delicate fish. It was enclosed 
 and defended by towers, as if it had been a regular castle, and 
 had within it many apartments, which were decked with flowers 
 and branches, so that in treading them one seemed to be in a 
 garden. Here were all kinds of game, and other provisions in 
 abundance, with many cooks to make them ready, and plenty 
 of the most costly spices and wines. The Italian ambassador 
 was greatly surprised to see, amongst rocks and wildernesses, 
 which seemed to be the very extremity of the world, such good 
 lodging and so magnificent an entertainment. But what sur- 
 prised him most of all, was to see the Highlanders set fire to 
 the wooden castle as soon as the hunting was over, and the 
 King in the act of departing. " Such is the constant practice 
 of our Highlanders," said James to the ambassador ; " however 
 well they may be lodged over night, they always burn their 
 lodging before they leave it." By this the King intimated the 
 predatory and lawless habits displayed by these mountaineers. 
 
 The reign of James V. was not alone distinguished by his 
 personal adventures and pastimes, but is honourably remem- 
 bered on account of wise laws made for the government of his 
 people, and for restraining the crimes and violence which were 
 frequently practised among them ; especially those of assassina- 
 tion, burning of houses, and driving of cattle, the usual and 
 ready means by which powerful chiefs avenged themselves of 
 their feudal enemies. 
 
 For the decision of civil questions, James V. invented and 
 instituted what is called the College of Justice, being the 
 Supreme Court of Scotland in civil affairs. It consisted of 
 fourteen judges (half clergy, half laity), and a president, who 
 heard and decided causes. A certain number of learned men,
 
 256 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXVII 
 
 trained to understand the laws, were appointed to the tafck of 
 pleading the causes of such as had lawsuits before these judges, 
 who constituted what is popularly termed the Court of Session. 
 These men were called advocates ; and this was the first estab- 
 lishment of a body, regularly educated to the law, which has 
 ever since been regarded in Scotland as an honourable profession, 
 and has produced many great men. 
 
 James V. used great diligence in improving his navy, and 
 
 undertook what was, at the time, rather a perilous task, to 
 
 sail in person round Scotland, and cause an accurate 
 
 survey to be made of the various coasts, bays, and 
 
 islands, harbours, and roadsteads of his kingdom, many of which 
 
 had been unknown to his predecessors, even by name. 
 
 This active and patriotic prince ordered the mineral wealth 
 of Scotland to be also inquired into. He obtained miners from 
 Germany, who extracted both silver and gold from the mines 
 of Leadhills, in the upper part of Clydesdale. The gold was of 
 fine quality, and found in quantity sufficient to supply metal for 
 a very elegant gold coin, which, bearing on one side the head 
 of James V. wearing a bonnet, has been thence called the 
 Bonnet -piece. It is said, that upon one occasion the King 
 invited the ambassadors of Spain, France, and other foreign 
 countries, to hunt with him in Crawford Moor, the district in 
 which lie the mines I have just mentioned. They dined in the 
 castle of Crawford, a rude old fortress. Tho King made some 
 apology for the dinner, which was composed of the game they 
 had killed during the hunting and hawking of the day, but he 
 assured his guests that the dessert would make them some 
 amends, as he had given directions that it should consist of the 
 finest fruits which the country afforded. The foreigners looked 
 at each other in surprise, on hearing the King talk of fruits 
 being produced amidst the black moors and barren mountains 
 around them. But the dessert made its appearance in the 
 shape of a number of covered saucers, one of which was placed 
 before each guest, and being examined was found full of gold 
 bonnet-pieces, which they were desired to accept as the fruit 
 produced by the mountains of Crawford Moor. This new sort 
 of dessert was no doubt as acceptable as the most delicate fruits 
 of a southern climate. The mines of the country are now 
 wrought only for lead, of which they produce still a very large 
 quantity.
 
 T533-40 GOLD-MINES 257 
 
 Although, as we have mentioned, James was a good econo- 
 mist, he did not neglect the cultivation of the fine arts. He 
 rebuilt the palace of Linlithgow, which is on a most magnificent 
 plan, and made additions to that of Stirling. He encouraged 
 several excellent poets and learned men, and his usual course of 
 life appears to have been joyous and happy. He was himself a 
 poet of some skill, and he permitted great freedom to the 
 rhymers of his time, in addressing verses to him, some of which 
 conveyed severe censure of his government, and others satires 
 on his foibles. 
 
 James also encouraged the sciences, but was deceived by a 
 foreigner, who pretended to have knowledge of the art of making 
 gold. This person, however, who was either crack-brained, or 
 an impostor, destroyed his own credit by the fabrication of a 
 pair of wings, with which he proposed to fly from the top of 
 Stirling Castle. He actually made the attempt, but as his 
 pinions would not work easily, he fell down the precipice and 
 broke his thigh-bone. 
 
 As the kingdom of Scotland, except during a very short and 
 indecisive war with England, remained at peace till near the 
 end of James's reign, and as that monarch was a wise and 
 active prince, it might have been hoped that he at least would 
 have escaped the misfortunes which seemed to haunt the name 
 of Stewart. But a great change, which took place at this 
 period, led James V. into a predicament, as unhappy as attended 
 any of his ancestors. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 Abuses of the Church of Some Reformation in England and in Scot- 
 land War with, England, and Death of James V. 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Henry VIIL 
 France : Francis I. 
 
 IS36-IS42 
 
 You remember, my dear child, that James V. was nephew to 
 Henry VIII. of England, being a son of Margaret, sister of 
 that monarch. This connection, and perhaps the policy of 
 
 17
 
 258 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXVIII 
 
 Henry, who was aware that it was better for both countries 
 that they should remain at peace, prevented for several years 
 the renewal of the destructive ware between the two divisions 
 of the island. The good understanding would probably have 
 been still more complete, had it not been for the great and 
 general change in religious matters called in history the Re- 
 formation. I must give you some idea of the nature of this 
 alteration, otherwise you cannot understand the consequences 
 to which it led. 
 
 After the death of our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ, the 
 doctrine which he preached was planted in Rome, the principal 
 city of the great Roman empire, by the Apostle Peter, as it is 
 said, whom the Catholics, therefore, term the first Bishop of 
 Rome. In process of time, the bishops of Rome, who succeeded, 
 as they said, the apostle in his office, claimed an authority over 
 all others in Christendom. Good and well-meaning persons, 
 in their reverence for the religion which they had adopted, 
 admitted these pretensions without much scrutiny. As the 
 Christian religion was more widely received, the emperors and 
 kings who embraced it thought to distinguish their piety by 
 heaping benefits on the Church, and on the bishops of Rome in 
 particular, who at length obtained great lands and demesnes as 
 temporal princes ; while, in their character of clergymen, they 
 assumed the title of Popes, and the full and exclusive authority 
 over all other clergymen in the Christian world. As the 
 people of those times were extremely ignorant, any little know- 
 ledge which remained was to be found among the clergy, who 
 had some leisure to study ; while the laity, that is, all men who 
 were not clergymen, learned little excepting to tilt, fight, and 
 feast. The popes of Rome, having established themselves as 
 heads of the Church, went on, by degrees, introducing into the 
 simple and beautiful system delivered to us in the Gospel, other 
 doctrines, many of them inconsistent with, or contradictory of, 
 pure Christianity, and all of them tending to extend the power 
 of the priests over the minds and consciences of other men. 
 It was not difficult for the popes to make these alterations. 
 For as they asserted that they were the visible successors of 
 Saint Peter they pretended that they were as infallible as the 
 apostle himself, and that all that they published in their 
 ordinances, which they called Bulls, must be believed by all 
 Christians, as much as if the same had been enjoined in the
 
 1536 CHURCH OF ROME 259 
 
 Holy Scripture itself. We shall notice two or three of these 
 innovations. 
 
 Some good men, in an early age of Christianity, had with- 
 drawn from the world to worship God in desert and desolate 
 places. They wrought for their bread, gave alms to the poor, 
 spent their leisure in the exercise of devotion, and were justly 
 respected. But by degrees, as well-meaning persons bestowed 
 great sums to support associations of such holy men, bequeathed 
 lands to the monasteries or convents in which they lived, and 
 made them wealthy, the Monks, as they were called, departed 
 from the simplicity of their order, and neglected the virtues 
 which they undertook to practise. Besides, by the extravagant 
 endowments of these convents, great sums of money and large 
 estates were employed in maintaining a useless set of men, who, 
 under pretence of performing devotional exercises, withdrew 
 themselves from the business of the world, and from all 
 domestic duties. Hence, though there continued to be amongst 
 the monks many good, pious, and learned men, idleness and 
 luxury invaded many of the institutions, and corrupted both 
 their doctrines and their morals. 
 
 The worship also of saints, for which Scripture gives us no 
 warrant whatever, was introduced in those ignorant times. It 
 is natural we should respect the memory of any remarkably 
 good man, and that we should value anything which has 
 belonged to him. The error lay in carrying this natural venera- 
 tion to extremity in worshipping the relics of a saintly 
 character, such as locks of hair, bones, articles of clothing, and 
 other trumpery, and in believing that such things are capable 
 of curing sickness, or of working other miracles shocking to 
 common sense. Yet the Roman Church opened the way to 
 this absurdity, and imputed to these relics, which were often a 
 mere imposture, the power, which God alone possesses, of 
 altering those laws of nature which his wisdom has appointed. 
 The popes also encouraged and enjoined the worship of saints, 
 that is, the souls of holy men deceased, as a sort of subordinate 
 deities, whose intercession may avail us before the throne of 
 God, although the Gospel has expressly declared that our Lord 
 Jesus Christ is our only Mediator. And in virtue of this 
 opinion, not only were the Virgin Mary, the apostles, and 
 almost every other person mentioned in the Gospels, erected 
 by the Roman Catholics into the office of intercessors with the
 
 260 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXVIII 
 
 Deity, but many others who never existed were canonised, 
 as it was called, that is, declared by the Pope to be saints, and 
 had altars and churches dedicated to them. Pictures also and 
 statues, representing these alleged holy persons, were exhibited 
 in churches, and received the worship which ought not, accord- 
 ing to the second commandment, to be rendered to any idol or 
 graven image. 
 
 Other doctrines there were, about fasting on particular days, 
 and abstaining from particular kinds of food, all of which were 
 gradually introduced into the Roman Catholic faith, though 
 contrary to the Gospel. 
 
 But the most important innovation, and that by which the 
 priests made most money, was the belief that the Church, or, 
 in other words, the priest, had the power of pardoning such 
 sins as were confessed to him, upon the culprit's discharging 
 such penance as the priest imposed on him. Every one was, 
 therefore, obliged to confess himself to a priest, if he hoped to 
 have his sins pardoned ; and the priest enjoined certain kinds 
 of penance, more or less severe, according to the circumstances 
 of the offence. But, in general, these penances might be ex- 
 cused, provided a corresponding sum of money were paid to 
 the Church, which possessed thus a perpetual and most lucra- 
 tive source of income, which was yet more increased by the 
 belief in Purgatory. 
 
 We have no right, from Scripture, to believe in the exist- 
 ence of any intermediate state betwixt that of happiness, which 
 we call Heaven, to which good men have access immediately 
 after death, or that called Hell, being the place of eternal 
 punishment, to which the wicked are consigned with the devil 
 and his angels. But the Catholic priests imagined the inter- 
 vention of an intermediate state, called Purgatory. They 
 supposed that many, or indeed that most people, were not of 
 such piety as to deserve immediate admission into a state of 
 eternal happiness, until they should have sustained a certain 
 portion of punishment ; but yet were not so wicked as to de- 
 serve instant and eternal condemnation. For the benefit of 
 these, they invented the intermediate situation of Purgatory, 
 a place of punishment to which almost every one, not doomed 
 to Hell itself, was consigned for a greater or less period, in 
 proportion to his sins, before admission into a state of happi- 
 ness. But here lay the stress of the doctrine. The power
 
 1536 CHURCH OF ROME 261 
 
 was in the Church to obtain pardon, by prayer, for the souls 
 who were in Purgatory, and to have the gates of that place 
 of torture opened for their departure sooner than would 
 otherwise have taken place. Men, therefore, whose con- 
 sciences told them that they deserved a long abode in this 
 place of punishment^ left liberal sums to the Church to have 
 prayers said for the behoof of their souls. Children, in like 
 manner, procured masses (that is, a particular sort of devo- 
 tional worship practised by Catholics) to be said for the souls 
 of their deceased parents. Widows did the same for their 
 departed husbands husbands for their wives. All these 
 masses and prayers could only be obtained by money, and all 
 this money went to the priests. 
 
 But the pope and his clergy carried the matter still farther ; 
 and not only sold, as they pretended, the forgiveness of Heaven, 
 to those who had committed sins, but also granted them 
 (always for money) a liberty to break through the laws of God 
 and the Church. These licences were called indulgences, because 
 those who purchased them were indulged in the privilege of 
 committing irregularities and vices, without being supposed 
 answerable to the Divine wrath. 
 
 To support this extraordinary fabric of superstition, the 
 Pope assumed the most extensive powers, even to the length of 
 depriving kings of their thrones, by his sentence of excommunica- 
 tion, which declared their subjects free from their oath of 
 allegiance, and at liberty to rise up against their sovereign 
 and put him to death. At other times the Pope took it upon 
 him to give the kingdoms of the excommunicated prince to 
 some ambitious neighbour. The rule of the Church of Rome 
 was as severe against inferior persons as against princes. If a 
 layman read the Bible, he was accounted guilty of a great 
 offence ; for the priests well knew that a perusal of the sacred 
 Scriptures would open men's eyes to their extravagant preten- 
 sions. If an individual presumed to disbelieve any of the 
 doctrines which the Church of Rome taught, or to entertain 
 any which were inconsistent with these doctrines, he was tried 
 as a heretic, and subjected to the horrid punishment of being 
 burnt alive ; and this penalty was inflicted without mercy for 
 the slightest expressions approaching to what the Papists called 
 heresy. 
 
 This extraordinary and tyrannical power over men's con-
 
 262 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXVIII 
 
 sciences was usurped during those ages of European history 
 which are called dark, because men were at that period without 
 the light of learning and information. But the discovery of 
 the art of printing began, in the fifteenth century, to enlighten 
 men's minds. The Bible, which had been locked up in the 
 hands of the clergy, then became open to all, and was generally 
 read; and wise and good men in Germany and Switzerland 
 made it their study to expose the errors and corruptions of 
 the see of Rome. The doctrine of saint-worship was shown 
 to be idolatrous that of pardons and indulgences, a foul 
 encouragement to vice that of Purgatory, a cunning means of 
 extorting money and the pretensions of the Pope to infalli- 
 bility, a blasphemous assumption of the attributes proper to 
 God alone. These new opinions were termed the doctrines of 
 the Reformers, and those who embraced them became gradu- 
 ally more and more numerous. The Roman Catholic priests 
 attempted to defend the tenets of their church by argument : 
 but as that was found difficult, they endeavoured, in most 
 countries of Europe, to enforce them by violence. But the 
 Reformers found protection in various parts of Germany. 
 Their numbers seemed to increase rather than diminish, and to 
 promise a great revolution in the Christian world. 
 
 Henry VIIL, the King of England, was possessed of some 
 learning, and had a great disposition to show it in this contro- 
 versy. Being, in the earlier part of his reign, sincerely attached 
 to the Church of Rome, he wrote a book in defence of its 
 doctrines, against Martin Luther, one of the principal reformers. 
 The Pope was so much gratified by this display of zeal, that 
 he conferred on the King the appellation of Defender of the 
 Faith ; a title which Henry's successors continue to retain, 
 although in a very different sense from that in which it was 
 granted. 
 
 Now Henry, you must know, was married to a very good 
 princess, named Catherine, who was a daughter of the King of 
 Spain, and sister to the Emperor of Germany. She had been, 
 in her youth, contracted to Henry's elder brother Arthur ; but 
 that prince dying, and Henry becoming heir of the throne, his 
 union with Catherine had token place. They had lived long 
 together, and Catherine had borne a daughter, Mary, who was 
 the natural heir-apparent of the English crown. But at length 
 Henry VIII. fell deeply in love with a beautiful young woiuuu,
 
 1536 THE REFORMATION 263 
 
 named Ann Boleyn, a maid of honour in the Queen's retinue,- 
 and he became extremely desirous to get rid of Queen Catherine, 
 and marry this young lady. For this purpose he applied to 
 the Pope, in order to obtain a divorce from the good Queen, 
 under pretence of her having been contracted to his elder 
 brother before he was married to her. This, he alleged, seemed 
 to him like marrying his brother's wife, and therefore he desired 
 that the Pope would dissolve a marriage which, as he alleged, 
 gave much pain to his conscience. The truth was, that his con- 
 science would have given him very little disturbance, had he not 
 wanted to marry another, a younger and more beautiful woman. 
 
 The Pope would have, probably, been willing enough to 
 gratify Henry's desire, at least his predecessors had granted 
 greater favours to men of less consequence ; but then Catherine 
 was the sister ot Charles V., who was at once Emperor of 
 Germany and King of Spain, and one of the wisest as well as 
 the most powerful princes in Christendom. The Pope, who 
 depended much on Charles's assistance for checking the Reform- 
 ation, dared not give him the great offence which would 
 have been occasioned by encouraging his sister's divorce. His 
 holiness, therefore, evaded giving a precise answer to the King 
 of England from day to day, week to week, and year to year. 
 But this led to a danger which the Pope had not foreseen. 
 
 Henry VIII. , a hot, fiery, and impatient prince as ever lived, 
 finding that the Pope was trifling with him, resolved to shake 
 off his authority entirely. For this purpose he denied the 
 authority of the Pope in England, and declared that he himself 
 was the only Head of the English Church, and that the Bishop 
 of Rome had nothing to do with him or his dominions. Many 
 of the bishops and clergymen of the English Church adopted the 
 reformed doctrines, and all disowned the supreme rule, hitherto 
 ascribed to the Pope. 
 
 But the greatest blow to the papal authority was the dis- 
 solution of the monasteries, or religious houses, as they were 
 called. The King seized on the convents, and the lands granted 
 for their endowment, and, distributing the wealth of the con- 
 vents among the great men of his court, broke up for ever 
 those great establishments, and placed an insurmountable ob- 
 stacle in the way of the Catholic religion being restored, after 
 the interest of so many persons had been concerned in its being 
 excluded.
 
 264 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXVIII 
 
 The motive of Henry VIII.'s conduct was by no means 
 praiseworthy, but it produced the most important and salutary 
 consequences ; as England was for ever afterwards, except 
 during the short reign of his eldest daughter, freed from all 
 dependence upon the Pope, and from the superstitious doctrines 
 of the Roman Catholic religion. 
 
 Now here, returning to Scottish history, you must under- 
 stand that one of Henry's principal wishes was to prevail upon 
 his nephew, the young King of Scotland, to make the same 
 alteration of religion in his country, which had been introduced 
 into England. Henry, if we can believe the Scottish historians, 
 made James the most splendid offers, to induce him to follow 
 this course. He proposed to give him the hand of his daughter 
 Mary in marriage, and to create him Duke of York ; and, with 
 a view to the establishment of a lasting peace between the 
 countries, he earnestly desired a personal meeting with his 
 nephew in the north of England. 
 
 There is reason to believe that James was, at one period, 
 somewhat inclined to the reformed doctrines ; at least, he 
 encouraged a Scottish poet, called Sir David Lindsay of the 
 Mount, and also the celebrated scholar, George Buchanan, in 
 composing some severe satires against the corruptions of the 
 Roman Catholic religion ; but the King was, notwithstanding, 
 by no means disposed altogether to fall off from the Church of 
 Rome. He dreaded the power of England, and the rough, 
 violent, and boisterous manners of Henry, who disgusted his 
 nephew by the imprudent violence with which he pressed him 
 to imitate his steps. But, in particular, James found the 
 necessity of adhering to the Roman Catholic faith, from the 
 skill, intelligence, and learning of the clergy, which rendered 
 them far more fit to hold offices of state, and to assist him in 
 administering the public business, than the Scottish nobility, 
 who were at once profoundly ignorant, and fierce, arrogant, and 
 ambitious in the highest degree. 
 
 The Archbishop Beaton, already mentioned, and his nephew 
 David Beaton, who was afterwards made a cardinal, rose high 
 in James's favour; and, no doubt, the influence which they 
 possessed over the King's mind was exerted to prevent his 
 following the example of his uncle Henry in religious affairs. 
 
 The same influence might also induce him to seek an alli- 
 ance with France, rather than with England ; for it was natural
 
 1536-8 THE REFORMATION 265 
 
 that the Catholic clergy, with whom James advised, should dis- 
 countenance, by every means in their power, any approaches to 
 an intimate alliance with Henry, the mortal enemy of the 
 Papal See. James V. accordingly visited France, and obtained 
 the hand of Magdalen, the daughter of Francis I., with a large 
 portion. Much joy was expressed at the landing of this prin- 
 cess at Leith, and she was received with as great 
 splendour and demonstration of welcome as the 
 poverty of the country would permit. But the young 
 Queen was in a bad state of health, and died within forty days 
 after her marriage. 
 
 After the death of this princess, the King, still inclining 
 to the French alliance, married Mary of Guise, daughter of 
 the Duke of Guise, thus connecting himself with Janel538 
 a family, proud, ambitious, and attached, in the 
 most bigoted degree, to the Catholic cause. This connection 
 served, no doubt, to increase James's disinclination to any 
 changes in the established Church. 
 
 But whatever were the sentiments of the sovereign, those 
 of the subjects were gradually tending more and more towards 
 a reformation of religion. Scotland at this time possessed 
 several men of learning who had studied abroad, and had 
 there learned and embraced the doctrines of the great reformer 
 Calvin. They brought with them, on their return, copies of 
 the Holy Scripture, and could give a full account of the con- 
 troversy between the Protestants, as they are now called, and 
 the Roman Catholic Church. Many among the Scots, both of 
 higher and lower rank, became converts to the new faith. 
 
 The Popish ministers and counsellors of the King ventured 
 to have recourse to violence, in order to counteract these results. 
 Several persons were seized upon, tried before the spiritual 
 courts of the Bishop of St. Andrews, and condemned to the 
 flames. The modesty and decency with which these men be- 
 haved on their trials, and the patience with which they under- 
 went the tortures of a cruel death, protesting at the same 
 time their belief in the doctrines for which they had been con- 
 demned to the stake, made the strongest impression on the 
 beholders, and increased the confidence of those who had em- 
 braced the tenets of the Reformers. Stricter and more cruel 
 laws were made against heresy. Even the disputing the power 
 of the Pope was punished with death ; yet the Reforma-
 
 266 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXVIII 
 
 tion seemed to gain ground in proportion to every effort to 
 check it. 
 
 The favours which the King extended to the Catholic clergy 
 led the Scottish nobility to look upon them with jealousy, and 
 increased their inclination towards the Protestant doctrines. 
 The wealth of the abbeys and convents, also, tempted many of 
 the nobles and gentry, who hoped to have a share of the church 
 lands, in case of these institutions being dissolved, as in 
 England. And although there were, doubtless, good men as 
 well as bad among the monks, yet the indolent, and even de- 
 bauched lives of many of the order, rendered them, generally, 
 odious and contemptible to the common people. 
 
 The popular discontent was increased by an accident which 
 took place in the year 1537. A matron of the highest rank, 
 Jane Douglas, sister of the banished Earl of Angus, widow of 
 John Lyon, Lord of Glamis, and wife of Archibald Campbell 
 of Kepneith, was accused of having practised against the life of 
 James, by the imaginary crime of witchcraft, and the more for- 
 midable means of poison. Her purpose was alleged to be the 
 restoration of the Douglases to Scotland, and to their estates 
 and influence in that country. This lady was burnt alive on 
 the Castle-hill of Edinburgh ; and the spectators, filled with 
 pity for her youth and beauty, and surprised at the courage 
 with which she endured the sentence, did not fail to impute 
 her execution less to any real crime than to the King's deep- 
 rooted hatred against the house of Douglas. Another capital 
 punishment, though inflicted on an object of general dislike, 
 served to confirm the opinion entertained of James's severity, 
 not to say cruelty, of disposition. We have mentioned Sir 
 James Hamilton of Draphane, called the Bastard of Arran, as 
 distinguished on account of the ferocity of his disposition, and 
 the murders which he committed in cold blood. This man had 
 been made sheriff of Ayr, and had received other favours from 
 the King's hand. Notwithstanding, he was suddenly accused 
 of treason by a cousin and namesake of his own ; and on that 
 sole testimony, condemned and executed. Upon this occasion 
 also, public opinion charged James with having proceeded with- 
 out sufficient evidence of guilt. 
 
 In the meantime, Henry continued to press the King of 
 Scotland, by letters and negotiations, to enter into common 
 measures with him against the Catholic clergy. He remon-
 
 1538-42 WAR WITH ENGLAND 267 
 
 strated with his nephew upon his preferring to improve his 
 royal revenue by means of herds and flocks, which he repre- 
 sented as an unprincely practice, saying, that if he wanted 
 money, he, his kind uncle, would let him have what sums he 
 pleased; or, that the wealth of the Catholic convents and 
 monasteries was a fund which lay at his command whenever he 
 liked to seize it. Lastly, the English ambassador, Sir Ralph 
 Sadler, insisted, as directed by his instructions, upon the evil 
 doctrines and vicious lives of the clergy, against whom he 
 urged the King to take violent measures. 
 
 Much of this message was calculated to affront James, yet 
 he answered temperately. He acknowledged that he preferred 
 living on his own revenue, such as it was, to becoming de- 
 pendent upon another king, even though that king was his 
 uncle. He had no pretext or motive, he said, to seize the 
 possessions of the clergy, because they were always ready to 
 advance him money when he had need of it. Those among 
 them who led vicious lives, he would not fail, he added, to 
 correct severely ; but he did not consider it as just to punish 
 the whole body for the faults of a few. In conclusion, King 
 James suffered a doubtful promise to be extracted from him 
 that he would meet Henry at York, if the affairs of his kingdom 
 would permit. 
 
 The King of Scotland was now brought to a puzzling alter- 
 native, being either obliged to comply with his uncle's wishes, 
 break off his alliance with France, and introduce the Reformed 
 religion into his dominions, or, by adhering to France and to 
 the Catholic faith, to run all the hazards of a war with England. 
 The churchmen exercised their full authority over the mind of 
 James at this crisis. The gold of France was not spared to 
 determine his resolution ; and it may be supposed that the 
 young Queen, sa nearly connected with the Catholic house of 
 Guise, gave her influence to the same party. James at length 
 determined to disappoint his uncle; and after the haughty 
 Henry had remained six days at York, in the expectation of 
 meeting him, he excused himself by some frivolous apology. 
 Henry was, as might have been expected, mortally offended, 
 and prepared for war. 
 
 A fierce and ruinous war immediately commenced. Hemy 
 sent numerous forces to ravage the Scottish Border. James 
 obtained success in the first considerable action, to his very
 
 268 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXVIII 
 
 great satisfaction, and prepared for more decisive hostility. He 
 assembled the array of his kingdom, and marched from Edin- 
 burgh as far as Fala, on his way to the Border, when tidings 
 arrived, 1st November 1542, that the English general had 
 withdrawn his forces within the English frontier. On this news, 
 the Scottish nobles, who, with their vassals, had joined the 
 royal standard, intimated to their sovereign that, though they 
 had taken up arms to save the country from invasion, yet they 
 considered the war with England as an impolitic measure, and 
 only undertaken to gratify the clergy ; and that, therefore, the 
 English having retired, they were determined not to advance 
 one foot into the enemy's country. One Border chieftain alone 
 offered with his retinue to follow the King wherever he chose 
 to lead. This was John Scott of Thirlstane, whom James 
 rewarded with an addition to his paternal coat-of-arms, with a 
 bunch of spears for the crest, and the motto, "Ready, aye 
 Ready." 
 
 James, finding himself thus generally thwarted and deserted 
 by the nobility, returned to Edinburgh, dishonoured before his 
 people, and in the deepest dejection of mind. 
 
 To retaliate the inroads of the English, and wipe out the 
 memory of Fala Moss, the King resolved that an army of ten 
 thousand men should invade England on the Western Border ; 
 and he imprudently sent with them his peculiar favourite, Oliver 
 Sinclair, who shared with the priests the unpopularity of the 
 English war, and was highly obnoxious to the nobility, as one 
 of those who engrossed the royal favour to their prejudice. 
 
 The army had just entered English ground, at a place called 
 Sol way Moss, when this Oliver Sinclair was raised upon the 
 soldiers' shields to read to the army a commission, which, it 
 was afterwards said, named Lord Maxwell commander of the 
 expedition. But no one doubted at the time that Oliver Sinclair 
 bad himself been proclaimed commander-in-chief ; and as he 
 was generally disliked and despised, the army instantly fell into 
 a state of extreme confusion. Four or five hundred English 
 Borderers, commanded by Thomas Dacre and John Musgrave, 
 perceived this fluctuation, and charged the numerous squadrons 
 of the invading army. The Scots fled without even attempting 
 to fight. Numbers of noblemen and persons of note suffered 
 themselves to be made prisoners rather than face the displeasure 
 of their disappointed sovereign.
 
 1542 DEATH OF JAMES V. 269 
 
 The unfortunate James had lately been assailed by various 
 calamities. The death of his two sons, and the disgrace of the 
 defection at Fala, had made a deep impression on his mind, 
 and haunted him even in the visions of the night. He dreamed 
 he saw the fierce Sir James Hamilton, whom he had caused 
 to be put to death upon slight evidence, approach him with a 
 drawn sword, the bloody shade said, " Cruel tyrant, thou hast 
 unjustly murdered me, who was indeed barbarous to other men, 
 but always faithful and true to thee ; wherefore now shalt thou 
 have thy deserved punishment." So saying, it seemed to him as 
 if Sir James Hamilton cut off first one arm and then another, 
 and then left him, threatening to come back soon and cut his 
 head off. Such a dream was very likely to arise in the King's 
 mind, perturbed as it was by misfortunes, and even perhaps 
 internally reproaching himself for Sir James Hamilton's death. 
 But to James the striking off his arms appeared to allude to 
 the death of his two sons, and he became convinced that the 
 ultimate threats of the vision presaged his own death. 
 
 The disgraceful news of the battle, or rather the rout of 
 Solway, filled up the measure of the King's despair and desola- 
 tion. He shut himself up in the palace of Falkland, and refused 
 to listen to any consolation. A burning fever, the consequence 
 of his grief and shame, seized on the unfortunate monarch. 
 They brought him tidings that his wife had given birth to a 
 daughter; but he only replied, "Is it so?" reflecting on the 
 alliance which had placed the Stewart family on the throne ; 
 " then God's will be done. It came with a lass, and it will go 
 with a lass." With these words, presaging the extinction of 
 his house, he made a signal of adieu to his courtiers, spoke 
 little more, but turned his face to the wall, and died 
 of the most melancholy of all diseases, a broken heart 14 ^ 4 ^ ec- 
 He was scarcely thirty -one years old; in the very 
 prime, therefore, of life. If he had not suffered the counsels of 
 the Catholic priests to hurry him into a war with England, 
 James V. might have been as fortunate a prince as his many 
 good qualities and talents deserved.
 
 270 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXIX 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 Negotiations for a marriage between the young Queen Mary and 
 Prince Edward of England their failure Invasion of Scotland 
 Cardinal Beaton's Administration and Death Battle of Pinkie 
 Mary is sent to France, and the Queen-Dowager becomes Regent-^ 
 Progress of the Reformation 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Henry VIII., Edward VI., 
 Mary, Elizabeth. France: Francis I., Henry II., Francis IL 
 
 1542 1560 
 
 THE evil fortunes of Mary Stewart, who succeeded her father 
 in the crown of Scotland, commenced at her very birth, and 
 could scarce be considered as ceasing during the whole period 
 of her life. Of all the unhappy princes of the line of Stewart, 
 she was the most uniformly unfortunate. She was born 7th 
 December 1542, and, in a few days after, became, by her 
 father's death, the infant Queen of a distracted country. 
 
 Two parties strove, as is usual in minorities, to obtain the 
 
 supreme power. Mary of Guise, the Queen -Mother, with 
 
 Cardinal David Beaton, were at the head of that which favoured 
 
 the alliance with France. Hamilton, Earl of Arran, the nearest 
 
 male relation of the infant Queen, was chief of the other, and 
 
 possessed more extended popularity ; for the nobles dreaded the 
 
 bold and ambitious character of the Cardinal, and the 
 
 2 i5.' conunon people detested him, on account of his cruel 
 
 persecution of the Reformers. The Earl of Arran, 
 
 however, was but a fickle and timid man, with little, it would 
 
 seem, to recommend him, besides his high birth. He was, 
 
 however, preferred to the office of Regent 
 
 Henry VIII. is said to have expressed much concern for the 
 death of his nephew, saying, there would never again reign a 
 King in Scotland so nearly related to him, or so dear to him, 
 and blaming, not the late James V., but his evil counsellors, 
 for the unfortunate dispute between them. At the same time, 
 Henry formed a plan of uniting the kingdoms of England and 
 Scotland by a marriage betwixt the infant Queen of Scotland 
 and his only son, Edward VI., then a child. He took into his
 
 1542-3 MARRIAGE NEGOTIATIONS 271 
 
 counsels the Earl of Glencairn and other Scottish nobles, made 
 prisoners in the rout of Sol way, and offered to set them at 
 liberty, provided, on their return to Scotland, they would 
 undertake to forward the match which he proposed. They 
 were released accordingly, upon giving pledges that they would 
 return in case the treaty should not be accomplished. 
 
 Archibald, Earl of Angus, with his brother, Sir George 
 Douglas, took the same opportunity of returning into Scotland, 
 after fifteen years' exile. They had been indebted to Henry 
 for support and protection during that long space of time. He 
 had even admitted them to be members of his Privy Council, 
 and by the countenance he afforded them, had given great 
 offence to the late King James. When, therefore, the influence 
 of the Douglases, naturally attached to him by gratitude, was 
 added to that of Glencairn and the others, who had been made 
 prisoners at Solway, and to the general weight of the Protestants, 
 favourable, of course, to an alliance with England, Henry must 
 be considered as having a party in Scotland in every way favour- 
 able to his views. 
 
 But the impatient temper of the English monarch ruined 
 his own scheme. He demanded the custody of the young 
 Queen of Scotland till she should be of age to complete the 
 marriage to be contracted by the present league, and he insisted 
 that some of the strongest forts in the kingdom should be put 
 into his hands. These proposals alarmed the national jealousy 
 of the Scots, and the characteristic love of independence and 
 liberty which we find that people have always displayed. The 
 nation at large became persuaded that Henry VIII., under 
 pretence of a union by marriage, nourished, like Edward I. in 
 similar circumstances, the purpose of subduing the country. 
 The exiled lords who had agreed to assist Henry's views could 
 be of no use to him, in consequence of the extravagance of his 
 propositions. They told Sir Ralph Sadler, the English am- 
 bassador, frankly, that the nation could not endure the surrender 
 of the Queen's person to Henry's charge that their own vassals 
 would not take arms for them in such a cause that the old 
 women of Scotland, with their distaffs, nay, the very stones in 
 the streets, would arise and fight against it 
 
 Henry was with difficulty prevailed upon to defer the time 
 for giving to him the custody of Queen Mary's person, until she 
 should be ten years old. But even this modified proposition
 
 272 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXIX 
 
 excited the greatest jealousy ; and Sir George Douglas, Henry's 
 chief advocate, only ventured to recommend acquiescence in the 
 King's proposal as a means of gaining time. He told the 
 Scottish nobles of a certain king, who was so fond of an ass, 
 that he insisted his chief physician should teach the animal to 
 speak, upon pain of being himself put to death. The physician 
 consented to undertake the case, but gave the King to understand 
 that it would be ten years before the operation of his medicines 
 could take effect. The King permitted him to set to work 
 accordingly. Now, one of the physician's friends seeing him 
 busy about the animal, expressed his wonder that so wise a 
 man should undertake what was contrary to nature ; to which 
 the physician replied, "Do you not see I have gained ten 
 years' advantage? If I had refused the King's orders, I must 
 have been instantly put to death; but as it is, I have the 
 advantage of a long delay, during which the King may die, the 
 ass may die, or I may die myself. In either of the three cases, 
 I am freed from my trouble." "Even so," said Sir George 
 Douglas, "if we agree to this treaty we avoid a bloody and 
 destructive war, and have a long period before us, during which 
 the King of England, his son Prince Edward, or the infant 
 Queen Mary, may one of them die, so that the treaty will be 
 broken off." Moved by such reasons, a parliament, which 
 consisted almost entirely of the lords of the English party, 
 consented to the match with England, and the Regent Arran 
 also agreed to it. 
 
 But while one part of the Scottish nobles adopted the resolu- 
 tion to treat with King Henry on his own terms, the Queen- 
 Mother and Cardinal Beaton were at the head of another and 
 still more numerous faction, who adhered to the old religion, 
 and to the ancient alliance with France, and were, of course, 
 directly opposed to the English match. The fickle temper of 
 the Regent contributed to break off the treaty which he had 
 subscribed. Within a fortnight after he had ratified the con- 
 ditions of the match with England, he reconciled himself to the 
 Cardinal and Queen-Mother, and joined in putting a stop to the 
 proposed marriage. 
 
 The English King, if he could have been watchful and 
 patient, might perhaps have brought the measure, which was 
 alike important to both countries, once more to bear. But 
 Henry, incensed at the Regent's double dealing, determined
 
 1543-4 INVASION OF SCOTLAND 273 
 
 for immediate war. He sent a fleet and army into the Firth 
 of Forth, which landed, and, finding no opposition, burnt the 
 capital of Scotland, and its seaport, and plundered the country 
 around. Sir Ralph Evers, and Sir Brian Latoun, were, at the 
 same time, employed in making inroads on the Border, which 
 were of the fiercest and most wasteful description. The account 
 of the ravage is tremendous. In one foray they numbered 
 192 towers, or houses of defence, burnt or razed, 403 Scots 
 slain, and 816 made prisoners; 10,386 cattle, 12,492 sheep, 
 1296 horses, and 850 bolls of corn, driven away as spoil. 
 Another list gives an account of the destruction of seven mon- 
 asteries, or religious houses; sixteen castles or towers; five 
 market -towns, two hundred and forty-three villages, thirteen 
 mills, and three hospitals, all pulled down or burnt. 
 
 The exploits of the English leaders might gratify Henry's 
 resentment, but they greatly injured his interest in Scotland, 
 for the whole kingdom became united to repel the invaders; 
 and even those who liked the proposed match with England 
 best, were, to use an expression of the time, disgusted with so 
 rough a mode of wooing. The Douglases themselves, bound 
 to Henry by so many ties, were obliged, on seeing the distress 
 and devastation of the country, to take part in the war against 
 him, and soon found an opportunity to do so. 
 
 It seems Henry had conferred upon his two successful leaders, 
 Evers and Latoun, all the lands which they had conquered, or 
 should be able to conquer upon the Border, and, in particular, 
 the fine counties of Merse and Teviotdale. " I will write the 
 instrument of possession upon their own bodies, with sharp 
 pens, and in blood-red ink," said the Earl of Angus, " because 
 they destroyed the tombs of my ancestors at the abbey of 
 Melrose." He accordingly urged Arran, the regent, or governor, 
 as he was called, to move towards the frontiers, to protect them. 
 Arran was with difficulty prevailed on to advance southward 
 to Melrose, with scarce so many as five hundred men in his 
 company. The English leaders were lying at Jedburgh with 
 five thousand men. Three thousand of these were regular 
 soldiers, paid by the King of England ; the rest were Borderers, 
 amongst whom there were many Scottish clans who had taken 
 the red cross, and submitted themselves to the dominion of 
 England. With these forces Evers and Latoun made a sudden 
 march, to surprise the governor and his handful of men ; but 
 
 18
 
 274 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER cHAf. XXIX 
 
 they failed, for the Scots retreated beyond the Tweed, to the 
 hills near Galashiels. 
 
 The English then prepared to retire to Jedburgh, and the 
 governor, acting by Angus's advice, followed them, and watched 
 their motions. In the meantime succours began to come in 
 to the Scottish army. A bold young man, Norman Leslie, the 
 master of Rothes, was the first to come up with three hundred 
 horse, from Fife, gallantly armed. Afterwards the Lord Buc- 
 cleuch joined them with a few of his clan, who arrived at full 
 speed, and assured them that the rest of the Scotts would be 
 presently on the field. This Border chieftain was a man of 
 great military sagacity, and knew the ground welL He advised 
 the governor and Angus to draw up their men at the foot of a 
 small eminence, and to send their horses to the rear. The 
 English, seeing the horses of the Scots ascend the hill, con- 
 cluded they were in flight, and turned hastily back to attack 
 them, hurrying in confusion, as to an assured conquest. Thus 
 they came in front of the Scottish army, who were closely and 
 firmly drawn up, at the very moment when they themselves 
 were in confusion from their hasty advance. As the Scots 
 began to charge, the Earl of Angus, seeing a heron arise out 
 of the marsh, cried out, " Oh, that I had my white hawk here, 
 that we might all join battle at once !" The English, surprised 
 and out of breath (and having the sun in their eyes as well 
 as the smoke of the gunpowder which the wind blew in their 
 faces), were completely defeated, and compelled to take to flight. 
 The Scottish Borderers, who had joined them during their 
 prosperity, perceiving their own countrymen to be victorious, 
 threw away their red crosses (the distinction which they had 
 assumed as subjects of England), and fell upon the English, for 
 the purpose of helping those against whom they had come to the 
 field, and making amends for their desertion of the Scottish cause. 
 These renegades made a pitiful slaughter, and the Scots in general, 
 provoked, probably, by the late ravages of the English, showed 
 themselves so cruel to the vanquished that they seemed to de- 
 serve the severe blow which the nation soon afterwards received. 
 Tradition says that a beautiful young maiden, called Lillyard, 
 followed her lover from the little village of Maxton, and when she 
 saw him fall in battle, rushed herself into the heat of the fight, 
 and was killed, after slaying several of the English. From this 
 female they call the field of battle Lillyard's Edge to this day.
 
 1545 LILLYARD'S EDGE 275 
 
 This battle was fought in 1545. A thousand Englishmen 
 were killed, together with their two leaders, of whom Evere 
 was buried in the abbey of Melrose, which he had repeatedly 
 plundered, and finally burnt. A great many prisoners were 
 made. One was Thomas Read, an alderman of the city of 
 London, whom we are surprised to meet with in such a predica- 
 ment. This worthy citizen had,- we are informed, refused to 
 pay his share of a benevolence, as it was called, that is, of a 
 sum of money which Henry demanded from the citizens of 
 London. It seems that though the power of the King could 
 not throw the alderman into jail until he paid the money, yet 
 he could force him to serve as a soldier ; and there is a letter 
 to Lord Evers, directing that Read should be subjected to all 
 the rigours and hardships of the service, that he might know 
 what soldiers suffered when in the field, and be more ready 
 another time to assist the King with money to pay them. It 
 is to be supposed that the alderman had a large ransom to pay 
 to the Scotsman who had the good luck to get him for a 
 prisoner. 
 
 Henry VIIL was highly incensed at this defeat of Lillyard's 
 Edge, or Ancram Moor, as it is frequently called, and vented 
 his displeasure in menaces against the Earl of Angus, notwith- 
 standing their connection by the Earl's marriage with the King's 
 sister. Angus treated the threats of the English monarch 
 with contempt. " Is our royal brother-in-law," he said, " angry 
 with me for being a good Scotsman, and for revenging upon 
 Ralph Evers the destruction of my ancestors' tombs at Mel- 
 rose ? They were better men than Evers, and I could in honour 
 do no less. And will my royal brother-in-law take my life for 
 that 1 Little does King Hemy know the skirts of Cairntable 
 (a mountain near Douglas Castle) ; I can keep myself there 
 against all his English host." 
 
 The truth is, that at no period of their history had the 
 Scottish people ever been more attached to France, and more 
 alienated from England, than uow; the proposed match 
 between the young Queen and the English Prince of Wales 
 being generally regarded with an abhorrence which was chiefly 
 owing to the vindictive and furious manner in which Henry 
 conducted the war. Of all the Scottish nobles who had origi- 
 nally belonged to the English party, Lennox alone continued 
 friendly to Henry ; and he being obliged to fly into England,
 
 276 TALKS OF A GKANDFATHER CHAP. XXIX 
 
 the King caused him to marry Lady Margaret Douglas, 
 daughter of his sister Margaret, by her second husband, the 
 Earl of Angus, and of course the King's niece. Their son 
 was the uuhappy Henry, Lord Darnley, of whom we shall have 
 much to say hereafter. 
 
 The King of France now sent a powerful body of auxiliary 
 troops to the assistance of the Scots, besides considerable sup- 
 plies of money, which enabled them to retaliate on the English, 
 so that the Borders on both sides were fearfully wasted. A 
 peace at length, in June 1546, ended a war in which both 
 countries suffered severely, without either attaining any deci- 
 sive advantage. 
 
 The Scottish affairs were now managed almost entirely by 
 Cardinal Beaton, a statesman, as we before observed, of great 
 abilities, but a bigoted Catholic, and a man of a severe and 
 cruel temper. He had gained entire influence over the Regent 
 Arran, and had prevailed upon that fickle nobleman to abandon 
 the Protestant doctrines, reconcile himself to the Church of 
 Rome, and consent to the persecution of the heretics, as the 
 Protestants were still called. Many cruelties were exercised ; 
 but that which excited public feeling to the highest degree 
 was the barbarous death of George Wishart. 
 
 This martyr to the cause of Reformation was a man of 
 honourable birth, great wisdom and eloquence, and of primi- 
 tive piety. He preached the doctrines of the Reformed religion 
 with zeal and with success, and was for some time pro- 
 tected against the efforts of the vengeful Catholics by the 
 barons who had become converts to the Protestant faith. At 
 length, however, he fell into the hands of the Cardinal, being 
 surrendered to him by Lord Bothwell, and was conveyed to 
 the castle of St. Andrews, a strong fortress and palace belong- 
 ing to the Cardinal as archbishop, and there thrown into a 
 dungeon. Wishart was then brought to a public trial, for 
 heresy, before the Spiritual Court, where the Cardinal presided. 
 He was accused of preaching heretical doctrine, by two priests, 
 called Lauder and Oliphant, whose outrageous violence was 
 strongly contrasted with the patience and presence of mind 
 shown by the prisoner. He appealed to the authority of the 
 Bible against that of the Church of Rome; but his judges 
 were little disposed to listen to his arguments, and he was 
 condemned to be burnt alive. The place of execution was
 
 1546 MARTYRDOM OF WISHART 277 
 
 opposite to the stately castle of the Cardinal, and Beaton him- 
 self sat upon the walls, which were hung with tapestry, to 
 behold the death of his heretical prisoner. The spot was also 
 carefully chosen, that the smoke of the pile might be seen 
 as far as possible, to spread the greater terror. 
 Wishart was then brought out, and fastened to a 
 stake with iron chains. He was clad in a buckram 
 garment, and several bags of gunpowder were tied round his 
 body to hasten the operation of the fire. A quantity of fagots 
 were disposed around the pile. While he stood in expectation 
 of his cruel death, he cast his eyes towards his enemy the 
 Cardinal, as he sat on the battlements of the castle, enjoying 
 the dreadful scene. 
 
 " Captain," he said to him who commanded the guard, 
 " may God forgive yonder man, who lies so proudly on the 
 wall within a few days he shall be seen lying there in as 
 much shame as he now shows pomp and vanity." 
 
 The pile was then fired, the powder exploded, the flames 
 arooe, and Wishart was dismissed by a painful death to a 
 blessed immortality. 
 
 Perhaps the last words of Wishart, which seemed to con- 
 tain a prophetic spirit, incited some men to revenge his death. 
 At any rate, the burning of that excellent person greatly in- 
 creased the public detestation against the Cardinal, and a daring 
 man stood forth to gratify the general desire, by putting him 
 to death. This was Norman Leslie, called the Master of 
 Rothes, the same who led the men of Fife at the battle of 
 Ancram Moor. It appears, that besides his share of the com- 
 mon hatred to the Cardinal as a persecutor, he had some private 
 feud or cause of quarrel with him. With no more than six- 
 teen men, Leslie undertook to assault the Cardinal in his own 
 castle, amongst his numerous guards and domestics. It chanced 
 that, as many workmen were still employed in labouring upon 
 the fortifications of the castle, the wicket of the castle gate 
 was open early in the morning, to admit them to their work. 
 The conspirators took advantage of this, and obtained posses- 
 sion of the entrance. Having thus gained admittance, they 
 seized upon the domestics of the Cardinal, and turned them 
 one by one out of the castle, then hastened to the Cardinal's 
 chamber, who had fastened the door. He refused them en- 
 trance, until they threatened to apply fire, when, learning that
 
 278 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXIX 
 
 Norman Leslie was without, the despairing prelate at length 
 undid the door, and asked for mercy. Melville, one of the 
 conspirators, told him he should only have such mercy as he 
 had extended to George Wishart, and the other servants of 
 God, who had been slain by his orders. He then, with his 
 sword pointed to his breast, bid the Cardinal say his prayers to 
 God, for his last hour was come. The conspirators now pro- 
 ceeded to stab their victim, and afterwards dragged the dead 
 body to the walls, to show it to the citizens of St. Andrews, 
 his clients and dependents, who came in fury to demand what 
 had become of their bishop. Thus his dead body really came 
 to lie with open shame upon the very battlements of his own 
 castle, where he had sat in triumph to behold Wishart's 
 execution. 1 
 
 Many persons who disapproved of this most unjustifiable 
 action were yet glad that this proud Cardinal, who had sold the 
 country in some measure to France, was at length removed. 
 Some individuals, who assuredly would not have assisted in 
 the slaughter, joined those who had slain the Cardinal in the 
 defence of the castle. The Regent hastened to besiege the 
 place, which, supplied by England with money, engineers, and 
 provisions, was able to resist the Scottish army for five months. 
 France, however, sent to Scotland a fleet and an army, with 
 engineers better acquainted with the art of attacking strong 
 places than those of the Scottish nation. The castle was, 
 therefore, surrendered. The principal defenders of it were 
 sent to France, and there for some time employed as galley- 
 slaves. The common people made a song upon the event, of 
 which the burden was 
 
 " Priests, content ye now, 
 And, priests, content ye now, 
 Since Norman and his company 
 Have fill'd the galleys fon." 
 
 Shortly after this tragical incident, King Henry VIII. of 
 England died. But his impatient and angry spirit continued 
 
 1 " It may now be pronounced, without fear of contradiction, that the 
 assassination of Beaton was no sudden event, arising simply out of indig- 
 nation for the fate of Wishart, but an act of long projected murder, en- 
 couraged, if not originated, by the English monarch ; and, so far as the 
 principal conspirators were concerned, committed from private and mer- 
 cenary considerations. " TYTLKR.
 
 1547 BATTLE OF PINKIE 279 
 
 to influence the counsels of the nation under the Lord Protec- 
 tor Somerset, who resolved to take the same violent measures 
 to compel the Scots to give their young Queen in marriage to 
 Edward VI., of which Henry had set an example. A chosen 
 and well-disciplined army of eighteen thousand men, well sup- 
 plied with all necessaries, and supported by an armed fleet, 
 invaded Scotland on the eastern frontier. The Scots assembled 
 a force of almost double the number of the invaders, but, as 
 usual, unaccustomed to act in union together, or to follow the 
 commands of a single general. Nevertheless, the Scottish 
 leaders displayed at the commencement of the campaign some 
 military skill. They posted their army behind the river Esk, 
 near Musselburgh, a village about six miles from Edinburgh, 
 and there seemed determined to await the advance of the 
 English. 
 
 The Duke of Somerset, Regent of England, and general of 
 the invading army, was now in a state of difficulty. The Scots 
 were too strongly posted to be attacked with hope of success, 
 and it is probable the English must have retreated with dis- 
 honour, had not their enemies, in one of those fits of impa- 
 tience which caused so many national calamities, abandoned 
 their advantageous position. 
 
 Confiding in the numbers of his army, the Scottish Regent 
 (Earl of Arran) crossed the Esk, and thus gave the English 
 the advantage of the ground, they being drawn up on the top 
 of a sloping eminence. The Scots formed in their usual order, 
 a close phalanx. They were armed with broadswords of an 
 admirable form and temper, and a coarse handkerchief was worn 
 in double and triple folds round each man's neck, "not for 
 cold,' says an old historian, "but for cutting." Especially, 
 each man carried a spear eighteen feet long. When drawn up, 
 they stood close together, the first rank kneeling on one knee, 
 and pointing their spears towards the enemy. The ranks im- 
 mediately behind stooped a little, and the others stood upright, 
 presenting their lances over the heads of their comrades, and 
 holding them with the butt-end placed against their foot, the 
 point opposed to the breast of the enemy. So that the Scot- 
 tish ranks were so completely defended by the close order in 
 which they stood, and by the length of their lances, that to 
 charge them seemed to be as rash as to oppose your bare hand 
 to a hedgehog's bristles.
 
 280 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXIX 
 
 The battle began by the English cavalry, under the Lord 
 Gray, rushing upon the close array of the Scots. They stood 
 fast, menacing the horsemen with their pikes, and calling, 
 " Come on, ye heretics ! " The charge was dreadful ; but as 
 the spears of the English horse were much shorter than those 
 of the Scottish infantry, they had greatly the worst of the 
 encounter, and were beaten off with the loss of m<ony men. 
 The Duke of Somerset commanded Lord Gray to renew the 
 charge, but Gray replied, he might as well bid him charge a 
 castle- wall. By the advice of the Earl of Warwick, a body of 
 archers and musketeers was employed instead of horsemen. 
 The thick order of the Scots exposed them to insufferable loss 
 from the missiles now employed against them, so that the Earl 
 of Angus, who commanded the vanguard, made an oblique 
 movement to avoid the shot ; but the main body of the Scots 
 unhappily mistook this movement for a flight, and were thrown 
 into confusion. The van then fled also, and the English horse 
 returning to the attack, and their infantry pressing forward, 
 the victory was gained with very little trouble. The Scots 
 attempted no further resistance, and the slaughter was very 
 great, because the river Esk lay between the fugitives and any 
 place of safety. Their loss was excessive. For more than five 
 miles the fields were covered with the dead, and wih the 
 spears, shields, and swords which the flying soldiers had cast 
 away, that they might run the faster. The day was equally 
 disgraceful and disastrous; so that the field of Pinkie, as it 
 was the last great defeat which the Scots received from the 
 English, was also one of the most calamitous. It was fought 
 on 10th September 1547. 
 
 It seemed to be decreed in those unhappy national wars, that 
 the English should often be able to win great victories over 
 the Scots, but that they should never derive any permanent 
 advantage from their successes. The battle of Pinkie, far from 
 paving the way to a marriage between Queen Mary and 
 Edward VI., which was the object of Somerset's expedition, 
 irritated and alarmed the Scots to such a degree, that they re- 
 solved to prevent the possibility of such a union, by marrying 
 their young mistress with the Dauphin, that is, the eldest son 
 of the King of France, and sending her to be bred up at the 
 French court. A hasty assent of the Scottish Parliament was 
 obtained to this, partly by the influence of gold, partly by the
 
 1547-8 MARY SENT TO FRANCE 281 
 
 appearance of the French soldiers, partly, according to the 
 reformer Kuox, by the menaces of the Lord of Buccleuch, 
 whom he describes as " a bloody man, who swore, with many 
 deadly oaths, that they who would not consent should do what 
 they would like worse." 
 
 By the match with France the great object of the English 
 government was rendered unattainable. But the Scots had 
 little occasion for triumph. The union with France, which 
 they so hastily and rashly adopted, brought a new and long 
 series of ruinous consequences upon the country. 
 
 Scotland, however, enjoyed the immediate advantage of a 
 considerable auxiliary force of French soldiers, under an officer 
 named D'Esse 1 , who rendered material assistance in recovering 
 several forts and castles which had fallen into the hands of the 
 English after the battle of Pinkie, and in which they had left 
 garrisons. The presence of these armed strangers gave great 
 facilities for carrying into accomplishment the treaty with 
 France. The Regent was gratified by the dukedom of Cha- 
 telherault, conferred on him by the French king, with a con- 
 siderable pension, in order to induce him to consent to the 
 match. The young Queen was embarked on board the French 
 galleys in July 1548, accompanied by four young ladies of 
 quality of her own age, destined to be her playfellows in child- 
 hood, and her companions when she grew up. They all bore 
 the same name with their mistress, and were called the Queen's 
 Maries. 1 
 
 The infant Queen being thus transferred to France, her 
 mother, Mary of Guise, the widow of James V., had the 
 address to get herself placed at the head of affairs in Scotland. 
 The Duke of Chatelherault, as we must now term the Earl of 
 Arran, always flexible in his disposition, was prevailed upon to 
 resign the office of Regent, which was occupied by the Queen 
 Dowager, who displayed a considerable degree of wisdom and 
 caution in the administration of the kingdom. Most men 
 wondered at the facility with which the Duke of Chatelherault, 
 
 1 The Queen's Maries were four young ladies of high families in 
 Scotland, viz. Livingston, Fleming, Seatoun, and Beatoun. After their 
 return with the Queen to Scotland, one of them became the subject of a 
 tragic ballad, which has 
 
 " Yestreen the Queen had four Maries, 
 The night she'll hae but three." 
 
 SIR W. SCOTT'S Poetical Works.
 
 282 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXIX 
 
 himself so near in relation to the throne, had given place to 
 Mary of Guise ; but none was so much offended as the Duke's 
 natural brother, who had succeeded Beaton as archbishop of St. 
 Andrews. He exclaimed with open indecency against the mean 
 spirit of his brother, who had thus given away the power of 
 Regent, when there was but a " squalling girl " betwixt him 
 and the crown. 
 
 The Queen Regent, thus placed in authority, endeavoured 
 to secure herself by diminishing the power of the Scottish 
 nobles, and increasing that of the crown. For this purpose 
 she proposed that a tax should be levied on the country at 
 large, to pay hired soldiers to fight, instead of trusting the 
 defence of the country to the noblemen and their retainers. 
 This proposal was exceedingly ill received by the Scottish Par- 
 liament. " We will fight for our families and our country," 
 they said, " better than any hirelings can do Our fathers did 
 so, and we will follow their example." The Earl of Angus 
 being checked for coming to Parliament with a thousand horse, 
 contrary to a proclamation of the Queen Regent, that none 
 should travel with more than their usual household train, an- 
 swered jestingly, " That the knaves would not leave him ; and 
 that he would be obliged to the Queen, if she could put him 
 on the way of being rid of them, for they consumed his beef 
 and his ale." She had equally bad success when she endeav- 
 oured to persuade the Earl to give her up his strong castle of 
 Tantallon, under pretence of putting a garrison there to defend 
 it against the English. At first he answered indirectly, as if 
 he spoke to a hawk which he held on his wrist and was feed- 
 ing at the time, "The devil," paid he, "is in the greedy gled 
 [kite] ! Will she never be full 1" The Queen, not choosing 
 to take this hint, continued to urge her request about the gar- 
 rison. "The castle, madam," he replied, "is yours at com- 
 mand ; but, by St. Bride of Douglas, I must be the captain, and 
 I will keep it for you as well as any one you will put into it." 
 The other nobles held similar opinions to those of Angus, and 
 would by no means yield to the proposal of levying any hired 
 troops, who, as they feared, might be employed at the pleasure 
 of the Queen Regent to diminish the liberties of the kingdom. 
 
 The prevalence of the Protestant doctrines in Scotland 
 strengthened the Scottish nobles in their disposition to make a 
 tand against the Queen Regent's desire to augment her power.
 
 1548-58 THE REFORMATION 283 
 
 Many great nobles, and a still greater proportion of the smaller 
 barons, had embraced the Beformed opinions ; and the preach- 
 ing of John Knox, a man of great courage, zeal, and talents, 
 made converts daily from the Catholic faith. 
 
 The Queen Regent, though herself a zealous Catholic, had 
 for some time tolerated, and even encouraged the Protestant 
 party, because they supported her interest against that of the 
 Hamiltons ; but a course of politics had been adopted in France, 
 by her brothers of the House of Guise, which occasioned her 
 to change her conduct in this respect. 
 
 You may remember that Edward VI. of England succeeded 
 to his father Henry. He adopted the Protestant faith, and 
 completed the Reformation which his father began. But he 
 died early, and was succeeded by his sister Mary of England, 
 daughter of Henry VIII. by his first wife, Catherine of Arragon, 
 whom he divorced under pretext of scruples of conscience. 
 This Mary endeavoured to bring back the Catholic religion, 
 and enforced the laws against heresy with the utmost rigour. 
 Many persons were burnt in her reign, and hence she has been 
 called the Bloody Queen Mary. She died, however, after a 
 short and unhappy reign, and her sister Elizabeth ascended the 
 throne with the general assent of the English nation. The 
 Catholics of foreign countries, however, and particularly those 
 of France, objected to Elizabeth's title to the crown. Elizabeth 
 was Henry's daughter by his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Now, 
 as the Pope had never consented either to the divorce of Queen 
 Catherine, or to the marriage of Anne Boleyn, the Catholics 
 urged that Elizabeth must be considered as illegitimate, and as 
 having, therefore, no lawful right to succeed to the throne, 
 which, as Henry VIII. had no other child, must, they contended, 
 descend upon Queen Mary of Scotland, as the grand-daughter of 
 Margaret, Henry's sister, wife of James IV. of Scotland, and 
 the next lawful heir, according to their argument, to her 
 deceased grand-uncle. 
 
 The court of France, not considering that the English them- 
 selves were to be held the best judges of the title of their own 
 Queen, resolved, in an evil hour, to put forward this claim of 
 the Scottish Queen to the English crown. Money was coined, 
 and plate manufactured, in which Mary, with her husband 
 Francis the Dauphin, assumed the style, title, and armorial 
 bearings of England, as well as Scotland ; and thxis laid the
 
 284 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXIX 
 
 first foundation for that deadly hatred between Elizabeth and 
 Mary which, as you will hear by and by, led to such fatal con- 
 sequences. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth, finding France was disposed to challenge 
 her title to the crown of England, prepared to support it with 
 all the bravery and wisdom of her character. Her first labour 
 was to re-establish the Reformed religion upon the same footing 
 that Edward VI. had assigned to it, and to destroy the Roman 
 Catholic establishments, which her predecessor Mary had 
 endeavoured to replace. As the Catholics of France and Scot- 
 land were her natural enemies, and attempted to set up the 
 right of Queen Mary as preferable to her own, so she was sure 
 to find friends in the Protestants of Scotland, who could not fail 
 to entertain respect, and even affection, for a princess who was 
 justly regarded as the protectress of the Protestant cause 
 throughout all Europe. 
 
 When, therefore, these changes took place in England, the 
 Queen Regent, at the instigation of her brothers of the House 
 of Guise, began once more to persecute the Protestants in 
 Scotland ; while their leaders turned their eyes to Elizabeth 
 for protection, counsel, and assistance ; all of which she was 
 easily disposed to render to a party whose cause rested on the 
 same grounds with her own. Thus, while France made a 
 vain pretence of claiming the kingdom of England in the name 
 of Mary, and appealed for assistance to the English Catholics, 
 Elizabeth far more effectually increased the internal dissensions 
 of Scotland by espousing the cause of the Protestants of that 
 country. 
 
 These Scottish Protestants no longer consisted solely of a few 
 studious or reflecting men, whose indulgence in speculation had 
 led them to adopt peculiar opinions in religion, and who could 
 be dragged before the spiritual courts, fined, imprisoned, 
 plundered, banished, or burnt, at pleasure. The Reformed 
 cause had now been adopted by many of the principal nobility ; 
 and being the cause, at once, of rational religion and legitimate 
 freedom, it was generally embraced by those who were most 
 distinguished for wisdom and public spirit. 
 
 Among the converts to the Protestant faith was a natural 
 son of the late King James V., who, being designed for the 
 Church, was at this time called Lord James Stewart, the Prior 
 of St. Andrews, but was afterwards better known by the title
 
 1558-9 THE REFORMATION 285 
 
 of the Earl of Murray. He was a young nobleman of great 
 parts, brave and skilful in war, and in peace a lover of justice, 
 and a friend to the liberties of his country. His wisdom, good 
 moral conduct, and the zeal he expressed for the Reformed 
 religion, occasioned his being the most active person amongst 
 the Lords of the Congregation, as the leaders of the Protestant 
 party were now called. 
 
 The Queen Eegent, more in compliance with the wishes of 
 her brothers than her own inclination, which was gentle and 
 moderate, began the quarrel by commanding the Protestant 
 preachers to be summoned to a court of justice at Stirling, on 
 10th May 1599 ; but such a concourse of friends and favourers 
 attended them, that the Queen was glad to put a stop to the 
 trial, on condition that they should not enter the town. Yet 
 she broke this promise, and had them proclaimed outlaws for 
 not appearing, although they had been stopped by her own 
 command. Both parties then prepared for hostilities ; and an 
 incident happened which heightened their animosity, while it 
 gave to the course of the Reformation a peculiar colour of 
 zealous passion. 
 
 The Protestants had made Perth their headquarters, where 
 they had already commenced the public exercise of their religion. 
 John Knox, whose eloquence gave him great influence with the 
 people, had pronounced a vehement sermon against the sin of 
 idolatry, in which he did not spare those reproaches which the 
 Queen Regent deserved for her late breach of faith. When his 
 discourse was finished, and while the minds of the hearers were 
 still agitated by its effects, a friar produced a little glass case, 
 or tabernacle, containing the images of saints, which he 
 required the bystanders to worship. A boy who was present 
 exclaimed, "That was gross and sinful idolatry!" The priest, 
 as incautious in his passion as ill-timed in his devotion, struck 
 the boy a blow ; and the lad, in revenge, threw a stone, whicli 
 broke one of the images. Immediately all the people began to 
 cast stones, not only at the images, but at the fine painted 
 windows, and, finally, pulled down the altars, defaced the 
 ornaments of the church, and nearly destroyed the whole 
 building. 
 
 The multitude next resolved to attack the splendid convent 
 of the Carthusians. The Prior had prepared for defence ; his 
 garrison consisted of the Highland tenants belonging to some
 
 286 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXIX 
 
 lands which the convent possessed in the district of Athole. 
 These men were determined to make the most of the occasion, 
 and demanded, that since they were asked to expose their lives 
 for the good of the Church, they should be assured, that if they 
 were killed, their families should retain possession of the lands 
 which they themselves enjoyed. The Prior impolitically 
 refused their request. They next demanded refreshments and 
 good liquor, to encourage them to fight. But nothing was 
 served out to them by the sordid churchman excepting salted 
 salmon and thin drink ; so that they had neither heart nor will 
 to fight when it came to the push, and made little defence 
 against the multitude, by whom the stately convent was 
 entirely destroyed. 
 
 The example of the Reformers in Perth was followed in St. 
 Andrews and other places ; and we have to regret that many 
 beautiful buildings fell a sacrifice to the fury of the lower orders, 
 and were either totally destroyed or reduced to piles of shape- 
 less ruins. 
 
 The Reformers of the better class did not countenance these 
 extremities, although the common people had some reason for 
 the line of violence they pursued, besides their own natural 
 inclination to tumultuary proceedings. One great point in 
 which the Catholics and Protestants differed was, that the 
 former reckoned the churches as places hallowed and sacred in 
 their own character, which it was a highly meritorious duty to 
 ornament and adorn with every species of studied beauty of 
 architecture. The Scottish Protestants, on the contrary, re- 
 garded them as mere buildings of stone and lime, having no 
 especial claim to respect when the divine service was finished. 
 The defacing, therefore, and even destroying, the splendid 
 Catholic churches, seemed to the early Reformers the readiest 
 mode of testifying their zeal against the superstitions of Popery. 
 There was a degree of policy in pulling down the abbeys and 
 monasteries, with the cells and lodgings made for the accommoda- 
 tion of the monks. " The true way to banish the rooks," said 
 John Knox, " is to pull down their nests, and the rooks will fly 
 off." But this maxim did not apply to the buildings used for 
 public worship. Respecting these at least, it would have been 
 better to have followed the example of the citizens of Glasgow, 
 who drew out in arms when the multitude were about 
 to destroy the High Church of that city, and, while they
 
 1559-60 THE REFORMATION 287 
 
 agreed with the more zealous in removing all the emblems 
 of Popish worship, insisted that the building itself should 
 remain uninjured, and be applied to the uses of a Protestant 
 church. 
 
 On the whole, however, though nia,uy line buildings were 
 destroyed in Scotland, in the first fury of the Reformation, it is 
 better that the country should have lost these ornaments than 
 that they should have been preserved entire, with the retention 
 of the corrupt and superstitious doctrines which had been 
 taught in them. 
 
 The demolition of the churches and sacred buildings aug- 
 mented the Queen Regent's displeasure against the Lords of 
 the Congregation, and at length both parties took the field. 
 The Protestant nobles were at the head of their numerous 
 followers ; the Queen chiefly relied upon a small but select body 
 of French troops. The war was not very violently carried on, 
 for the side of the Reformers became every day stronger. The 
 Duke of Chatelherault, the first nobleman in Scotland, a second 
 time espoused the cause of the Congregation ; and Maitland of 
 Lethington, one of the wisest statesmen in the kingdom, took 
 the same course. At the same time, although the Lords found 
 it easy to bring together large bodies of men, yet they had not 
 the money or means necessary to keep them together for a long 
 time, while the French veteran soldiers were always ready to 
 take advantage when the Reformed leaders were obliged to 
 diminish their forces. Their difficulties became greater when 
 the Queen Regent showed her design to fortify strongly the 
 town of Leith and the adjacent island of Inchkeith, and place 
 her French soldiers in garrison there ; so that, being in posses- 
 sion of that seaport, she might at all times, when she saw 
 occasion, introduce an additional number of foreigners. 
 
 Unskilled in the art of conducting sieges, and totally without 
 money, the Lords of the Congregation had recourse to the 
 assistance of England : and for the first time an English fleet 
 and army approached the territories of Scotland by sea and 
 land, not with the purpose of invasion, as used to be the case 
 of old, but to assist the nation in its resistance to the arms of 
 France, and the religion of Rome. 
 
 The English army was soon joined by the Scottish Lords 
 of the Congregation, and advancing to Leith, laid siege to the 
 town, which was most valorously defended by the French
 
 288 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXIX 
 
 soldiers, who displayed a degree of ingenuity in their defence, 
 which for a long time resisted every effort of the besiegers. 
 They were, however, blockaded by the English fleet, so that 
 no provisions could be received by sea; and on land being 
 surrounded by a considerable army, provisions became so scarce 
 that they were obliged to feed upon horse-flesh. 
 
 In the meantime their mistress, the Queen Regent, had 
 retired into the castle of Edinburgh, where grief, fatigue, and 
 disappointed expectations, threw her into an illness, of which 
 she died on 10th of June 1560. The French troops in Leith 
 being now reduced to extremity, Francis and Mary determined 
 upon making peace in Scotland at the expense of most important 
 concessions to the Reformed party. They agreed that, instead 
 of naming a new Regent, the administration of affairs should 
 be conferred upon a council of government chosen by Parliament; 
 they passed an act of indemnity, as it is called, that is, an act 
 pardoning all offences committed during these wars ; and they 
 left the subject of religion to be disposed of as the Parliament 
 should determine, which was, in fact, giving the full power to 
 the Reformed party. All foreign troops, on both sides, were to 
 be withdrawn accordingly. 
 
 England, and especially Queen Elizabeth, gained a great 
 point by this treaty, for it recognised, in express terms, the 
 title of that princess to the throne of England ; and Francis 
 and Mary bound themselves to lay aside all claim to that 
 kingdom, together with the arms and emblems of English 
 sovereignty which they had assumed and borne. 
 
 The Parliament of Scotland being assembled, it was soon 
 seen that the Reformers possessed the power and inclination 
 to direct all ita resolutions upon the subject of religion. They 
 condemned unanimously the whole fabric of Popery, and 
 adopted, instead of the doctrines of the Church of Rome, the 
 tenets contained in a confession, or avowal of faith, drawn up 
 by the most popular of the Protestant divines. Thus the whole 
 religious constitution of the Church was at once altered. 
 
 There was one particular in which the Scottish Reformers 
 greatly differed from those of England. The English monarch, 
 who abolished the power of the Pope, had established that of 
 the crown as the visible Head of the Church of England. The 
 meaning of this phrase is, not that the King has the power of 
 altering the religious doctrines of the Church, but only that he
 
 1560 THE REFORMATION 289 
 
 should be the chief of the government in Church affairs, as he 
 was always in those of the State. On the contrary, the 
 Reformed ministers of Scotland renounced the authority of any 
 interference of the civil magistrate, whether subject or sovereign, 
 in the affairs of the Church, declaring it should be under the 
 exclusive direction of a court of delegates chosen from its own 
 members, assisted by a certain number of the laity, forming 
 what is called a General Assembly of the Church. The Scottish 
 Reformers disclaimed also the division of the clergy into the 
 various ranks of bishops, deans, prebendaries, and other classes 
 of the clerical order. They discarded this subordination of 
 ranks, though retained in the English Protestant Church, 
 maintaining that each clergyman entrusted with a charge of 
 souls was upon a level in every respect with the rest of his 
 brethren. They reprobated, in particular, the order of bishops, 
 as holding a place in the National Council, or Parliament ; and 
 asserted, that meddling in secular affairs was in itself improper 
 for their office, and naturally led to the usurpation over men's 
 consciences, which had been the chief abomination of the Church 
 of Rome. The laity of Scotland, and particularly the great 
 nobility, saw with pleasure the readiness of the ministers to 
 resign all those pretensions to worldly rank and consequence, 
 which had been insisted upon by the Roman Catholic clergy, 
 and made their self-denying abjuration of titles and worldly 
 business a reason for limiting the subsistence which they were 
 to derive from the funds of the Church, to the smallest possible 
 sum of annual stipend, whilst they appropriated the rest to 
 themselves without scruple. 
 
 It remained to dispose of the wealth lately enjoyed by the 
 Catholic clergy, who were supposed to be possessed of half of 
 the revenue of Scotland, so far as it arose from land. Knox 
 and the other Reformed clergy had formed a plan for the decent 
 maintenance of a National Church out of these extensive funds, 
 and proposed, that what might be deemed more than sufficient 
 for this purpose should be expended upon hospitals, schools, 
 universities, and places of education. But the Lords, who had 
 seized the revenues of the Church, were determined not to part 
 with the spoil they had obtained ; and those whom the preachers 
 had found most active in destroying Popery were wonderfully 
 cold when it was proposed to them to surrender the lands they 
 had seized upon for their own use. The plan of John Knox 
 
 19
 
 290 TALES OF A GRANDFATHEU CHAP. XXX 
 
 was, they said, a "devout imagination," a visionary scheme, 
 which showed the goodness of the preacher's intentions, but 
 which it was impossible to carry into practice. In short, they 
 retained by force the greater part of the Church revenues for 
 their own advantage. 
 
 "When Francis and Mary, who had now become King and 
 Queen of France, heard that the Scottish Parliament had totally 
 altered the religion, and changed the forms of the National 
 Church from Catholic to Protestant, they were extremely 
 angry ; and had the King lived, it is most likely they would 
 have refused to consent to this great innovation, and preferred 
 rekindling the war by sending a new army of French into 
 Scotland. But if they meditated such a measure, it was 
 entirely prevented by the death of Francis II., on the 5th of 
 December 1560. 
 
 During her husband's life, Mary had exercised a great 
 authority in France, for she possessed unbounded influence over 
 his mind. After his death, and the accession of Charles his 
 brother, that influence and authority ceased. It must have 
 been painful to a lofty mind like Mary's thus to endure coldness 
 and neglect in the place where she had met with honour and 
 obedience. She retired, therefore, from the court of France, 
 and determined to return to her native kingdom of Scotland ; a 
 resolution most natural in itself, but which became the intro- 
 duction to a long and melancholy tale of misfortunes. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 Queen Mary's Return to Scotland Happy commencement of her Reign 
 Expedition against Huntly Negotiations tcith Elizabeth of 
 England concerning a second Marriage Marriage of Mary and 
 Darnley 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Elizabeth. 
 France : Charles IX. 
 
 1560 1565 
 
 MARY STEWART, the Queen Dowager of France and the 
 hereditary Queen of Scotland, was accounted the most beauti-
 
 1560-1 MARY'S RETURN TO SCOTLAND 291 
 
 ful and accomplished woman of her time. Her countenance 
 was lovely ; she was tall, well -formed, elegant in all her 
 motions, skilled in the exercises of riding and dancing, and 
 possessed of all the female accomplishments which were in 
 fashion at that period. Her education in France had been 
 carefully attended to, and she had profited by the opportunities 
 of instruction she enjoyed. She was mistress of several lan- 
 guages, and understood state affairs, in which her husband had 
 often followed her advice. The beauty of Mary was enhanced 
 by her great condescension, and by the good-humour and gaiety 
 which she sometimes carried to the verge of excess. Her 
 youth, for she was only eighteen when she returned to Scotland, 
 increased the liveliness of her disposition. The Catholic 
 religion, in which she had been strictly educated, was a great 
 blemish in the eyes of her people ; but on the whole the nation 
 expected her return with more hope and joy than Mary herself 
 entertained at the thought of exchanging the fine climate of 
 France, and the gaieties of its court, for the rough tempests and 
 turbulent politics of her native country. 
 
 Mary set sail from France 15th August 1561. The 
 English fleet was at sea, and there is great reason to believe 
 that it had a purpose of intercepting the Queen of Scots, as a 
 neighbour whose return was dreaded by Elizabeth. Occupied 
 with anxious forebodings, the Queen remained on the deck of 
 her galley, gazing on the coasts of France. Morning found her 
 in the same occupation ; and when they vanished from her eyes, 
 she exclaimed in sorrow, " Farewell, farewell, happy France ; I 
 shall never see thee more ! " 
 
 She passed the English fleet under cover of a mist, and 
 arrived at Leith on the 19th August, where little or no prepara- 
 tion had been made for her honourable reception. Such of the 
 nobles as were in the capital hastened, however, to wait upon 
 their young Queen, and convey her to Holyrood, the palace of 
 her ancestors. Horses were provided to bring her and her 
 train to Edinburgh ; but they were wretched ponies, and had 
 such tattered furniture and accoutrements that poor Mary, 
 when she thought of the splendid palfreys and rich appoint- 
 ments at the court of France, could not forbear shedding tears. 
 The people were, however, in their way, rejoiced to see her ; 
 and about two hundred citizens of Edinburgh, each doing his 
 best upon a three-stringed fiddle, played under her window all
 
 292 TALKS OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXX 
 
 night, by way of welcome, a noisy serenade, which deprived 
 her of sleep after her fatigue. She took it as it was meant, 
 nevertheless, and expressed her thanks to the perpetrators of 
 this mistimed and mistimed concert. Mary had immediately 
 after her arrival a specimen of the religious zeal of her Reformed 
 subjects. She had ordered mass to be performed by a Popish 
 ecclesiastic in her own chapel, but the popular indignation was 
 so much excited, that but for the interference of her natural 
 brother, the Prior of St. Andrews, the priest would have been 
 murdered on his own altar. 
 
 Mary behaved with admirable prudence at this early period 
 of her reign. She enchanted the common people by her grace 
 and condescension, and while she sate in council, usually em- 
 ployed in some female work, she gained credit for her wisdom 
 among the statesmen whom she consulted. She was cautious 
 of attempting anything contrary to the religion of her subjects, 
 though different from her own ; and guided by the advice of 
 the Prior of St. Andrews, and of the sagacious Maitland, she 
 made rapid progress in the affections of her people. She con- 
 ferred on the Prior of St. Andrews, who had given up thoughts 
 of the Church, the title and the earldom of Mar, which had 
 been frequently bestowed on branches of the royal family. 
 
 With similar prudence, the Queen maintained all the usual 
 intercourse of civility with Elizabeth ; and while she refused 
 to abandon her title to the crown of England, in the case of 
 Elizabeth dying without heirs of her body, she expressed her 
 anxious wish to live on the best terms with her sister sovereign, 
 and her readiness to relinquish, during the life of the English 
 Queen, any right of inheritance to the English crown which she 
 might possess to her prejudice. Elizabeth was silenced, if not 
 satisfied : and there continued to be a constant communication 
 of apparent friendship between the two sovereigns, and an 
 exchange of letters, compliments, and occasionally of presents, 
 becoming their rank, with much profession of mutual kindness. 
 
 But there was one important class of persons to whom 
 Mary's form of religion was so obnoxious that they could not 
 be gained to any favourable thoughts of her. These were the 
 preachers of the Reformed faith, who, recollecting Mary's 
 descent from the family of Guise, always hostile to the Pro- 
 testant cause, exclaimed against the Queen, even in the pulpit, 
 with an indecent violence unfitting that place, and never spoke
 
 1561-2 EXPEDITION AGAINST HUNTLY 293 
 
 of her but as one hardened in resistance to the voice of true 
 Christian instruction. John Knox himself introduced such 
 severe expressions into his sermons, that Queen Mary con- 
 descended to expostulate with him personally, and to exhort 
 him to use more mild language in the discharge of his duty. 
 Nevertheless, though the language of these rough Reformers 
 was too vehement, and though their harshness was impolitic, 
 as tending unnecessarily to increase the Queen's dislike of them 
 and their form of religion, it must be owned that their suspi- 
 cions of Mary's sincerity were natural, and in all probability 
 well founded. The Queen uniformly declined to ratify the 
 religious system adopted by the Parliament in 1560, or the 
 confiscation of the Church lands. She always seemed to con- 
 sider the present state of things as a temporary arrangement, 
 to which she was indeed willing to submit for the time, but 
 with the reservation that it should be subjected to alterations 
 when there was a fitting opportunity. Her brother, the newly- 
 created Earl of Mar, however, who was at this time her prin- 
 cipal counsellor, and her best friend, used his influence with the 
 Protestant clergy in her behalf; some coldness in consequence 
 arose between him and John Knox, which continued for more 
 than a year. 
 
 The first troublesome affair in Queen Mary's reign seems to 
 have arisen from her attachment to this brother and his interest. 
 She had created him Earl of Mar, as we have said ; but it was 
 her purpose to confer on him, instead of this title, that of Earl 
 of Murray, and with it great part of the large estates belong- 
 ing to that northern earldom, which had become vested in the 
 crown after the extinction of the heirs of the celebrated Thomas 
 Randolph, who enjoyed it in the reign of the great Robert 
 Bruce. The earldom of Murray had afterwards been held by a 
 brother of the Earl of Douglas, but had again been forfeited to 
 the crown on the fall of that great family in James the Second's 
 time. 
 
 This exchange, however, could not be made, without giving 
 offence to the Earl of Huntly, often mentioned as head of the 
 most powerful family in the North, who had possessed himself 
 of a considerable part of those domains which had belonged to 
 the earldom of Murray. This Earl of Huntly was a brave man, 
 and possessed of very great power in the Northern counties. 
 He was one of the few remaining peers who continued attached
 
 294 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXX 
 
 to the Catholic religion, and, after the family of Hamilton, was 
 the nearest in connection to the royal family. 
 
 It was believed, that if the Queen, instead of coming to 
 Leith, had landed at Aberdeen, and declared herself determined 
 to reinstate the Catholic religion, the Earl would have joined 
 her with twenty thousand men for accomplishing that purpose. 
 Mary, however, declined this proposal, which must have had 
 the immediate consequence of producing a great civil war. The 
 Earl of Huntly was, therefore, considered as hostile to the 
 present government, and to the Earl of Mar, who had the 
 principal management of affairs; and it was to be supposed, 
 that possessed as Huntly was of great power, and a very 
 numerous body of dependents and retainers, he would not 
 willingly surrender to his political enemy any part of the 
 domains which he possessed belonging to the earldom of 
 Murray. 
 
 The Earl of Mar was, on his part, determined to break the 
 strength of this great opponent ; and Queen Mary, who appears 
 also to have feared Huntly's power, and the use which he 
 seemed disposed to make of it, undertook a personal journey to 
 the north of Scotland, to enforce obedience to her commands. 
 About the same time, Sir John Gordon, the Earl of Huntly's 
 son, committed some feudal outrage, for which he was sentenced 
 to temporary confinement This punishment, though slight, 
 was felt as another mark of disfavour to the house of Gordon, 
 and increased the probability of their meditating resistance. 
 It is difficult, or rather impossible, to say whether there were 
 good grounds for suspecting Huntly of entertaining serious 
 views to take arms against the crown. But his conduct was, 
 to say the least, incautious and suspicious. 
 
 The young Queen advanced northward at the head of a 
 small army, encamping in the fields, or accepting such miser- 
 able lodgings as the houses of the smaller gentry afforded. It 
 was, however, a scene which awoke her natural courage, and, 
 marching at the head of her soldiery, such was her spirit, that 
 she publicly wished she had been a man, to sleep all night in 
 the fields, and to walk armed with a jack and skull-cap of steel, 
 a good Glasgow buckler at her back, and a broadsword by her 
 side. 
 
 Huntly seems to have been surprised by the arrival of his 
 sovereign, and undecided what to do. While he made all offers
 
 1562 EXPEDITION AGAINST HUNTLY 295 
 
 of submission, and endeavoured to prevail on the Queen to 
 visit his house as that of a dutiful subject, a party of his fol- 
 lowers refused her admission into the royal castle of Inverness, 
 and attempted to defend that fortress against her. They were, 
 however, compelled to surrender, and the governor was executed 
 for treason. 
 
 Meantime, Sir John Gordon escaped from the prison to which 
 the Queen had sentenced him, and placed himself at the head 
 of the vassals of his house, who were now rising in every 
 direction ; while his father, the Earl of Huntly, considering the 
 Queen as guided entirely by his enemy, the Earl of Mar, at 
 length assumed arms in person. 
 
 Huntly easily assembled a considerable host, and advanced 
 towards Aberdeen. The purpose of his enterprise was, perhaps, 
 such as Buccleuch had entertained at the field of Melrose, an 
 attack rather upon the Queen's counsellors than on her person. 
 But her brother, who had now exchanged bis title of Mar for 
 that of Murray, was as brave and as successful as Angus upon 
 the former occasion, with this advantage, that he enjoyed the 
 confidence of his sovereign. He was, however, in a state of 
 great difficulty. The men on whom he could with certainty 
 rely were few, being only those whom he had brought from the 
 midland counties. He summoned,, indeed, the northern barons 
 in his neighbourhood, and they came ; but with doubtful inten- 
 tions, full of awe for the house of Gordon, and probably with 
 the private resolution of being guided by circumstances. 
 
 Murray, who was an excellent soldier, drew up the men he 
 could trust on an eminence called the hill of Fare, near Cor- 
 richie. He did not allow the northern clans to mix their 
 doubtful succours with this resolute battalion, and the event 
 showed the wisdom of his precaution. Huntly approached, and 
 encountered the northern troops, his allies and neighbours, who 
 offered little or no resistance. They fled tumultuously towards 
 Murray's main body, pursued by the Gordons, who threw away 
 their spears, drew their swords, and advanced in disorder, as to 
 an assured victory. In this tumult they encountered the 
 resistance of Murray's firm battalion of spearmen, who received 
 the attack in close order, and with determined resolution. The 
 Gordons were repulsed in their turn ; and those clans who 
 had before fled, seeing they were about to lose the day, re- 
 turned with sprigs of heather in their caps, which they used to
 
 296 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXX 
 
 distinguish them, fell upon the Gordons, and completed 
 Murray's victory. Huntly, a bulky man, and heavily armed, 
 fell from horseback in the flight, and was trodden to death, or, 
 as others say, died afterwards of a broken heart This battle 
 was fought 28th October 1562. The body of Huntly, a man 
 lately esteemed one of the bravest, wisest, and most powerful 
 in Scotland, was afterwards brought into a court of justice, 
 meanly arrayed in a doublet of coarse canvas, that the sentence 
 of a traitor might be pronounced over the senseless corpse. 
 
 Sir John Gordon, the son of the vanquished Earl, was be- 
 headed at Aberdeen, three days after the battle. Murray was 
 placed in possession of the estates belonging to his new earl- 
 dom, and the Queen returned, after having struck general 
 terror into the minds of such barons as were thought refrac- 
 tory, by the activity of her measures, and the success of her 
 arms. 
 
 Thus far the reign of Mary had been eminently prosperous ; 
 but a fatal crisis approached, which was eventually to plunge 
 her into the utmost misery. She had no children by her de- 
 ceased husband, the King of France, and her subjects were 
 desirous that she should marry a second husband, a purpose 
 which she herself entertained and encouraged. It was neces- 
 sary, or politic at least, to consult Queen Elizabeth on the 
 subject. That princess had declared her own resolution never 
 to marry, and if she should keep this determination, Mary of 
 Scotland was the next heir to the English crown. In expecta- 
 tion of this rich and splendid inheritance, it was both prudent 
 and natural, that in forming a new marriage, Mary should de- 
 sire to have the advice and approbation of the princess to 
 whose realm she or her children might hope to succeed, especi- 
 ally if she could retain her favour. 
 
 Elizabeth of England was one of the wisest and most saga- 
 cious Queens that ever wore a crown, and the English to this 
 day cherish her memory with well-deserved respect and attach- 
 ment. But her conduct towards her kinswoman Mary, from 
 beginning to end, indicated a degree of envy and deceit totally 
 unworthy of her general character. Determined herself not 
 to marry, it seems to have been Elizabeth's desire to prevent 
 Mary also from doing so, lest she should see before her a lin- 
 eage, not her own, ready to occupy her throne immediately after 
 her death. She therefore adopted a mean and shuffling policy,
 
 1562-4 MARRIAGE NEGOTIATIONS 297 
 
 recommending one match after another to her kinswoman, but 
 throwing in obstacles whenever any of them seemed likely to 
 take place. At first she appeared desirous that Mary should 
 marry the Earl of Leicester, a nobleman, whom, though by no 
 means distinguished by talents or character, she herself admired 
 so much for his personal beauty as to say that, except for her 
 vow never to marry, she would have chosen him for her own 
 husband. It may be readily believed, that she had no design 
 such a match as she hinted at should ever take place, and that 
 if Mary had expressed any readiness to accept of Leicester, 
 Elizabeth would have found ready means to break off the 
 marriage. 
 
 This proposal, however, was not at all agreeable to Queen 
 Mary. Leicester, if his personal merit had been much greater, 
 was of too low a rank to pretend to the hand of a Queen of 
 Scotland, and Queen Dowager of France, to whom the most 
 powerful monarchs in Europe were at the same time paying 
 suit. 
 
 The Archduke Charles, third son of the Emperor of Ger- 
 many, was proposed on one side; the hereditary Prince of 
 Spain was offered on another; the Duke of Anjou, who be- 
 came afterwards Henry II. of France, also presented himself. 
 But if Mary had accepted the hand of a foreign prince, she 
 would in so doing have resigned her chance of succeeding to 
 the English crown : nay, considering the jealousy of her Pro- 
 testant subjects, she might have endangered her possession of 
 that of Scotland. She was so much impressed by these con- 
 siderations, that she went so far as to intimate that she might 
 consent to the match with the Earl of Leicester, provided that 
 Elizabeth would recognise her as next heir to the English 
 crown, in case of her own decease without children. This, 
 however, did not suit Elizabeth's policy. She did not desire 
 Mary to be wedded to any one, far less to Leicester, her own 
 personal favourite ; and was therefore extremely unlikely to 
 declare her sentiments upon the succession (a subject on which 
 she always observed the most mysterious silence), in order to 
 bring about the union of her rival with the man she herself 
 preferred. 
 
 Meantime the views of Queen Mary turned towards a young 
 nobleman of high birth, nearly connected both with her own 
 family and that of Elizabeth. This was Henry Stewart Lord
 
 298 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXX 
 
 Darnley, eldest son of the Earl of Lennox. You may recollect 
 that, after the battle of Flodden, the Earl of Angus married 
 the Queen Dowager of Scotland ; and, in the tumults which 
 followed, was compelled to retire for a season to London. 
 While Angus resided in England, his wife bore him a daughter, 
 called Lady Margaret Douglas, who, when her parents re- 
 turned to Scotland, continued to remain at the English court, 
 under the protection of her uncle, King Henry. Again you 
 must remember that during the regency of the Duke of Chatel- 
 herault, the Earl of Lennox attempted to place himself at the 
 head of the English party in Scotland ; but his efforts failing 
 through want of power or of conduct, he also was compelled to 
 retire to England, where Henry VIII. , in acknowledgment of 
 his unavailing aid, bestowed on him the hand of his niece, 
 Lady Margaret Douglas, who, in right of her mother Mar- 
 garet, had a claim of inheritance to the English crown. 
 
 The young Lord Darnley's father being of such high rank, 
 and his parents having such pretensions, Mary imagined that 
 in marrying him she would gratify the wishes of Elizabeth, 
 who seemed to point out, though ambiguously, a native of 
 Britain, and one not of royal rank, as her safest choice, and 
 as that which would be most agreeable to herself. Elizabeth 
 seemed to receive the proposal favourably, and suffered the 
 young man, and his father Lennox, to visit the court of Scot- 
 land, in the hope that their presence might embroil matters 
 further ; and thinking that, in case the match should be likely 
 to take place, she might easily break it off by recalling them 
 as her subjects ; a command which she supposed they would 
 not dare to disobey, as enjoying all their lands and means of 
 living in England. 
 
 Young Darnley was remarkably tall and handsome, perfect 
 in all external and showy accomplishments, but unhappily des- 
 titute of sagacity, prudence, steadiness of character, and ex- 
 hibiting only doubtful courage, though extremely violent in his 
 passions. Had this young man possessed a very moderate por- 
 tion of sense, or even of gratitude, we might have had a differ- 
 ent story to tell of Mary's reign as it was, you will hear a 
 very melancholy one. Mary had the misfortune to look upon 
 this young nobleman with partiality, and was the more willing 
 to gratify her own inclinations in his favour, that she longed 
 to put an end to the intrigues by which Queen Elizabeth had
 
 1564-5 MARRIAGE WITH DARNLEY 299 
 
 endeavoured to impose upon her, and prevent her marriage. 
 Indeed, while the two queens used towards each other the 
 language of the most affectionate cordiality, there was betwixt 
 them neither plain dealing nor upright meaning, but great dis- 
 simulation, envy, and fear. 
 
 Darnley, in the meantime, endeavouring to strengthen the 
 interest which he had acquired in the Queen's affections, had 
 recourse to the friendship of a man, of low rank, indeed, but 
 who was understood to possess particular influence over the 
 mind of Mary. This was an Italian of humble origin, called 
 David Rizzio, who had been promoted from being a menial in 
 the Queen's family, to the confidential office of French secre- 
 tary. His talents for music gave him frequent admission to 
 Mary's presence, as she delighted in that art ; and his address 
 and arts of insinuation gained him a considerable influence 
 over her mind. It was almost necessary that the Queen should 
 have near her person some confidential officer, skilled at once 
 in languages and in business, through whom she might com- 
 municate with foreign states, and with her friends in France in 
 particular. No such agent was likely to be found in Scotland, 
 unless she had chosen a Catholic priest, which would have 
 given more offence to her Protestant subjects than even the 
 employment of a man like Rizzio. Still the elevation of this 
 person, a stranger, a Catholic, and a man of mean origin, to 
 the rank of a minister of the crown and, yet more, the per- 
 sonal familiarity to which the Queen condescended to admit 
 him, and the airs of importance which this low-born foreigner 
 pretended to assume, became the subject of offence to the proud 
 Scottish nobles, and of vulgar scandal among the common 
 people. 
 
 Darnley, anxious to strengthen his interest with the Queen 
 on every hand, formed an intimacy with Rizzio, who employed 
 all the arts of flattery and observance to gain possession of his 
 favour, and unquestionably was serviceable to him in advancing 
 his suit. The Queen, in the meanwhile, exerted herself to re- 
 move the obstacles to her union with Darnley, and with such 
 success, that, with the approbation of far the greater part of 
 her subjects, they were married at Edinburgh on the 29th 
 July 1565.
 
 300 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXI 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 The Run-about Raid Murder of Rizzio Birth of James VI. 
 Death of Darnley. 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Elizabeth. France: 
 Francis IX. 
 
 15651567 
 
 WHEN Elizabeth received news that this union was deter- 
 mined upon, she gave way to all the weakness of an envious 
 woman. She remonstrated against the match, though, in fact, 
 Mary could scarcely have made a choice less dangerous to 
 England. She recalled Lennox and his son Daruley from 
 Scotland a mandate which they refused, or delayed, to obey. 
 She committed the Countess of Lennox, the only one of the 
 family within her reach, a prisoner to the Tower of London. 
 Above all, she endeavoured to disturb the peace of Scotland, 
 and the government of Mary and her new husband, by stirring 
 up to insurrection those among the Scottish nobility to whom 
 the match with Darnley was distasteful. 
 
 The Queen's brother, the Earl of Murray, was by far the 
 most able and powerful of those who were displeased by Mary's 
 marriage. Darnley and he were personal enemies ; and besides, 
 Murray was the principal of the Lords of the Congregation, 
 who affected to see danger to the Protestant religion in Mary's 
 choice of Darnley for a husband, and in the disunion which it 
 was likely to create betwixt Scotland and England. Murray 
 even laid a plan to intercept Daruley, seize his person, and 
 either put him to death, or send him prisoner to England. A 
 body of horse was for this purpose stationed at a pass under 
 the hill of Bennarty, near Kinross, called the Parrot-well, to 
 intercept the Queen and Darnley as they returned from a Con- 
 vention of Estates held at Perth ; and they only escaped the 
 danger by a hasty march, commenced early in the morning. 
 
 After the marriage, Murray and his confederates, who were 
 the Duke of Chatelherault, Glencairn, Argyle, Rothes, and 
 others, actually took up arms. The Queen, in this emergency, 
 assembled her subjects around her. They came in such num-
 
 1565 RUN-ABOUT RAID 301 
 
 here as showed her popularity. Darnley rode at their head in 
 gilded armour, accompanied by the Queen herself, having 
 loaded pistols at her saddle-bow. Unable to stand their ground, 
 Murray and his accomplices eluded the pursuit of the royal 
 army, and made a sudden march on Edinburgh, where they 
 hoped to find friends. But the citizens not adopting their 
 cause, and the castle threatening to fire on them, the insurgents 
 were compelled to retreat, first to Hamilton, then to Dumfries, 
 until they finally disbanded their forces in despair, and the 
 leaders fled into England. Thus ended an insurrection which, 
 from the hasty and uncertain manner in which the conspirators 
 posted from one part of the kingdom to another, obtained the 
 popular name of the Run-about Raid (or ride). 
 
 Elizabeth, who had encouraged Murray and his associates 
 to rise against Mary, was by no means desirous to have the 
 discredit of having done so, when she saw their attempt was 
 unsuccessful. She caused Murray and the Abbot of Kilwinning 
 to appear before her in presence of the ambassadors of France 
 and Spain, who, interfering in Mary's behalf, had accused 
 Elizabeth of fomenting the Scottish disturbances. " How say 
 you," she exclaimed, " my Lord of Murray, and you his com- 
 panion 1 Have you had advice or encouragement from me in 
 your late undertaking 1 " The exiles, afraid to tell the truth, 
 were contented to say, however falsely, that they had received 
 no advice or assistance at her hands. " There you indeed speak 
 truth," replied Elizabeth ; "for neither did I, nor any in my 
 name, stir you up against your Queen ; your abominable treason 
 may serve for example to my own subjects to rebel against me. 
 Therefore get out of my presence; you are but unworthy 
 traitors ! " Mortified and disgraced, Murray and his com- 
 panions again retired to the Border, where Queen Elizabeth, 
 notwithstanding her pretended resentment, allowed them 
 privately means of support, until times should permit them 
 to return into Scotland, and renew disturbances there. 
 
 Mary had thus overcome her refractory subjects, but she 
 soon found that she had a more formidable enemy in the foolish 
 and passionate husband whom she had chosen. This headstrong 
 young man behaved to his wife with great disrespect, both as a 
 woman and as a queen, and gave himself up to intoxication, 
 and other disgraceful vices. Although already possessed of 
 more power than fitted his capacity or age, for he was but
 
 302 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXI 
 
 nineteen, he was importunate in his demands for obtaining 
 what was called in Scotland the Crown Matrimonial ; that is, 
 the full equality of royal right in the crown with his consort. 
 Until he obtained this eminence he was not held to be King, 
 though called so in courtesy. He was only the husband of 
 the Queen. 
 
 This crown matrimonial had been bestowed on Mary's first 
 husband, Francis, and Darnley was determined to be possessed 
 of the same rank But Mary, whose bounty had already far 
 exceeded his deserts, as well as his gratitude, was resolved not 
 to make this last concession, at least without the advice and 
 consent of the Parliament. 
 
 The childish impatience of Darnley made him regard with 
 mortal hatred whatever interfered with the instant execution 
 of his wishes; and his animosity on this occasion turned 
 against the Italian secretary, once his friend, but whom he 
 now esteemed his deadly foe, because he supposed that Rizzio 
 encouraged the Queen in resisting his hasty ambition. His 
 resentment against the unhappy stranger arose to such a height, 
 that he threatened to poniard him with his own hand ; and as 
 Rizzio had many enemies, and no friends save his mistress, 
 Darnley easily procured instruments, and those of no mean 
 rank, to take the execution of his revenge on themselves. 
 
 The chief of Darnley's accomplices, on this unhappy occasion, 
 was James Douglas, Earl of Morton, chancellor of the kingdom, 
 tutor and uncle to the Earl of Angus (who chanced then to be 
 a minor), and administrator, therefore, of all the power of the 
 great house of Douglas. He was a nobleman of high military 
 talent and great political wisdom ; but although a pretender to 
 sanctity of life, his actions show him to have been a wicked 
 and unscrupulous man. Notwithstanding he was chancellor of 
 the kingdom, and therefore bound peculiarly to respect the laws, 
 he did not hesitate to enter into the young King's cruel and 
 unlawful purpose. Lord Ruthven too, whose frame was ex- 
 hausted by illness, nevertheless undertook to buckle on his 
 armour for the enterprise ; and they had no difficulty in finding 
 other agents. 
 
 It would have been easy to have seized on Rizzio, and dis- 
 posed of him as the Scottish peers at the bridge of Lauder 
 used the favourites of James III. 1 But this would not have 
 1 See ante, p. 198.
 
 1566 MURDER OF RIZZIO 303 
 
 accomplished the revenge of Darnley, who complained that the 
 Queen showed this mean Italian more civility than she did to 
 himself, and therefore took the barbarous resolution of seizing 
 him in her very presence. 
 
 While this savage plot was forming, Rizzio received several 
 hints of what was likely to happen. Sir James Melville was 
 at pains to explain to him the danger that was incurred by a 
 stranger in any country, who rose so high in the favour of the 
 prince, as to excite the disgust of the natives of the land. A 
 French priest, who was something of an astrologer, warned 
 the secretary to beware of a bastard. To such counsels, he 
 replied, " That the Scots were more given to threaten than to 
 strike ; and as for the bastard (by whom he supposed the Earl 
 of Murray to be meant), he would take care that he should 
 never possess power enough in Scotland to do him any harm." 
 Thus securely confident, he continued at court, to abide his fate. 
 
 Those lords who engaged in the conspiracy did not agree to 
 gratify Darnley's resentment against Rizzio for nothing. They 
 stipulated, as the price of their assistance, that he should in 
 turn aid them in obtaining pardon and restoration to favour 
 for Murray, and his accomplices in the Run-about Raid ; and 
 intimation was despatched to these noblemen, apprising them 
 of the whole undertaking, and desiring them to be at Edinburgh 
 on the night appointed for doing the deed. 
 
 Queen Mary, like her father, James V., was fond of laying 
 aside the state of a sovereign, and indulging in small private 
 parties, quiet, as she termed them, and merry. On these 
 occasions, she admitted her favourite domestics to her table, 
 and Rizzio seems frequently to have had that honour. On the 
 9th of March 1566 six persons had partaken of supper in a 
 small cabinet adjoining to the Queen's bedchamber, and having 
 no entrance save through it Rizzio was of the number. About 
 seven in the evening, the gates of the palace were occupied by 
 Morton, with a party of two hundred men ; and a select band 
 of the conspirators, headed by Darnley himself, came into the 
 Queen's apartment by a secret staircase. Darnley first entered 
 the cabinet, and stood for an instant in silence, gloomily eyeing 
 his victim. Lord Ruthven followed in complete armour, looking 
 pale and ghastly, as one scarcely recovered from long sickness. 
 Others crowded in after them, till the little closet was full of 
 armed men. While the Queen demanded the purpose of their
 
 304 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXI 
 
 coming, Rizzio, who saw that his life was aimed at, got behind 
 her, and clasped the folds of her gown, that the respect due to 
 her person might protect him. The assassins threw down the 
 table, and seized on the unfortunate object of their vengeance, 
 while Darnley himself took hold of the Queen, and forced 
 Rizzio and her asunder. It was their intention, doubtless, to 
 have dragged Rizzio out of Mary's presence, and to have killed 
 him elsewhere ; but their fierce impatience hurried them into 
 instant murder. George Douglas, called the postulate of 
 Arbroath, a natural brother of the Earl of Morton, set the 
 example, by snatching Darnley's dagger from his belt, and 
 striking Rizzio with it. He received many other blows. They 
 dragged him through the bedroom and antechamber, and de- 
 spatched him at the head of the staircase, with no less than 
 fifty-six wounds. Ruthven, after all was over, fatigued with 
 his exertions, sat down in the Queen's presence, and, begging 
 her pardon for the liberty, called for a drink to refresh him, as 
 if he had been doing the most harmless thing in the world. 
 
 The witnesses, the actors, and the scene of this cruel tragedy, 
 render it one of the most extraordinary which history records. 
 The cabinet and the bedroom still remain in the same condition 
 in which they were at the time ; and the floor near the head 
 of the stair bears visible marks of the blood of the unhappy 
 Rizzio. The Queen continued to beg his life with prayers and 
 tears ; but when she learned that he was dead, she dried her 
 tears. " I will now," she said, " study revenge." 
 
 The conspirators, who had committed the cruel action en- 
 tirely or chiefly to gratify Darnley, reckoned themselves, of 
 course, secure of his protection. They united themselves with 
 Murray and his associates, who were just returned from Eng- 
 land according to appointment, and agreed upon a course of 
 joint measures. The Queen, it was agreed, should be put 
 under restraint in Edinburgh Castle, or elsewhere ; and Murray 
 and Morton were to rule the state under the name of Darnley, 
 who was to obtain the crown matrimonial, which he had so 
 anxiously desired. But all this scheme was ruined by the de- 
 fection of Darnley himself. As fickle as he was vehement, and 
 as timorous as he had shown himself cruel, Rizzio was no 
 sooner slain than Darnley became terrified at what had been 
 done, and seemed much disposed to deny having given any 
 authority for the crime.
 
 1566 BIRTH OF JAMES VI. 
 
 Finding her weak-minded husband in a state between re- 
 morse and fear, Mary prevailed on him to take part against 
 the very persons whom he had instigated to the late atrocious 
 proceeding. Darnley and Mary escaped together out of Holy- 
 rood House, and fled to Dunbar, where the Queen issued a pro- 
 clamation which soon drew many faithful followers around her. 
 It was now the turn of the conspirators to tremble. That the 
 Queen's conquest over them might be more certain, she par- 
 doned the Earl of Murray, and those concerned in the Run 
 about Raid, as guilty of more venial offences than the assassins 
 of Rizzio ; and thus Murray, Glencairn, and others, were re- 
 ceived into favour, while Morton, Ruthven, and his comrades 
 fled in their turn to England. No Scottish subject, whatever 
 his crime, could take refuge there without finding secret support, 
 if not an open welcome. Such was Elizabeth's constant policy. 
 
 Queen Mary was now once more in possession of authority, 
 but much disturbed and vexed by the silly conduct of her hus- 
 band, whose absurdities and insolences were not abated by the 
 consequences of Rizzio's death ; so that the royal pair con- 
 tinued to be upon the worst terms with each other, though dis- 
 guised under a species of reconciliation. 
 
 On the 19th of June 1566 Mary was delivered of a son, 
 afterwards James VI. When news of this event reached 
 London, Queen Elizabeth was merrily engaged in dancing ; but 
 upon hearing what had happened, she left the dance, and sat 
 down, leaning her head on her hand, and exclaiming passion- 
 ately to her ladies, " Do you not hear how the Queen of Scots 
 is mother of a fair son, while I am but a barren stock ! " But 
 next morning she had recovered herself sufficiently to maintain 
 her usual appearance of outward civility, received the Scottish 
 ambassador with much seeming favour, and accepted with 
 thanks the office of godmother to the young Prince, which he 
 proffered to her in Queen Mary's name. 
 
 After a splendid solemnity at christening the heir of Scot- 
 laud, Queen Mary seems to have turned her mind towards 
 settling the disorders of her nobility ; and, sacrificing her own 
 justifiable resentment, she yielded so far as to grant pardon to 
 all those concerned in the murder of Rizzio. Two men of low 
 rank, and no more, had been executed for that crime. Lord 
 Ruthven, the principal actor, had died in England, talking and 
 writing as composedly of "the slaughter of David," as if it 
 
 20
 
 306 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXI 
 
 had been the most indifferent, if not meritorious, action possible. 
 George Douglas, who struck the first blow, and Ker of Faldon- 
 side, another ruffian who offered his pistol at the Queen's bosom 
 in the fray, were exempted from the general pardon. Morton 
 and all the others were permitted to return, to plan new 
 treasons and murders. 
 
 We are n<>w come, my dear child, to a very difficult period 
 in history. The subsequent events in the reign of Queen 
 Mary are well known ; but neither the names of the principal 
 agenta in those eveuts, nor the motives upon which they acted, 
 are at all agreed upon by historians. It has, in particular, 
 been warmly disputed, and will probably long continue to be 
 so, how far Queen Mary is to be considered as a voluntary 
 party or actor in the tragical and criminal events of which I 
 am about to tell you ; or how far, being innocent of any fore- 
 knowledge of these violent actions, she was an innocent victim 
 of the villainy of others. Leaving you, my dear child, when 
 you come to a more advanced age, to study this historical point 
 for yourself, I shall endeavour to give you an outline of the 
 facts as they are admitted and proved on all sides. 
 
 James Hepburn, Earl of Both well, a man in middle age, 
 had for several years played a conspicuous part in these 
 troubled times. He had sided with the Queen Regent against 
 the Reformed party, and was in general supposed to be at- 
 tached rather to the reigning Queen than to any of the factions 
 who opposed her. He was head of the powerful family of 
 Hepburn, and possessed great influence in East Lothian and 
 Berwickshire, where excellent soldiers could always be ob- 
 tained. In his morals Bothwell was wild and licentious, irregu- 
 lar and daring in his ambition ; and although his history does 
 not show many instances of personal courage, yet in his early 
 life he had the reputation of possessing it. He had been in 
 danger on the occasion of Rizzio's murder, being supposed, from 
 his regard for the Queen, to have been desirous of preventing 
 that cruel insult to her person and authority. As this noble- 
 man displayed great zeal for Mary's cause, she was naturally 
 led to advance him at court, until many persons, and particu- 
 larly the preachers of the Reformed religion, thought that she 
 admitted to too great intimacy a man of so fierce and profligate 
 a character ; and a numerous party among her subjects accused 
 the Queen of being fonder of Bothwell than was becoming.
 
 1566 CONSPIRACY AGAINST DARNLEY 307 
 
 A thoughtless action of Mary's seemed to confirm this sus- 
 picion. Bothwell, among other offices of authority, held that 
 of Lord Warden of all the Marches, and was residing at the 
 castle of Hermitage, a royal fortress which belonged to that 
 office, in order to suppress some disorders on the Border. In 
 October 1566, attempting with his own hand to seize a Border 
 freebooter called John Elliot of the Park, he was severely 
 wounded in the hand. The Queen, who was then at Jedburgh 
 holding a court of justice, hastened through woods, morasses, 
 and waters, to pay a visit to the wounded warden ; and though 
 the distance was twenty English miles, she went and returned 
 from Hermitage Castle in the same day. This excursion might 
 arise solely from Mary's desire to learn the cause and particulars 
 of a great outrage on her lieutenant ; but all those who wished 
 ill to her, who were a numerous body, represented it as expres- 
 sive of her anxiety for the safety of her lover. 
 
 In the meantime, the dissensions between Darnley and the 
 Queen continued to increase; and while he must have been 
 disliked by Mary from their numerous quarrels, and the affronts 
 he put upon her, as well as from his share in the murder of 
 Rizzio, those who had been concerned with him in that last 
 crime, considered him as a poor mean-spirited wretch, who, 
 having engaged his associates in so daring an act, had after- 
 wards betrayed and deserted them. His latter conduct showed 
 no improvement in either sense or spirit He pretended he 
 would leave the kingdom, and by this and other capricious 
 resolutions, hastily adopted and abandoned, he so far alienated 
 the affections of the Queen, that many of the unscrupulous and 
 plotting nobles, by whom she was surrounded, formed the idea, 
 that it would be very agreeable to Mary if she could be freed 
 from her union with this unreasonable and ill-tempered young 
 man. 
 
 The first proposal made to her was, that she should be 
 separated from Daruley by a divorce. Bothwell, Maitland, 
 Morton, and Murray, are said to have joined in pressing such a 
 proposal upon the Queen, who was then residing at Craigmillar 
 Castle, near Edinburgh ; but she rejected it steadily. A con- 
 spiracy of a darker kind was then agitated, for the murder of 
 the unhappy Darnley ; and Bothwell seems to have entertained 
 little doubt that Mary, thus rid of an unacceptable husband, 
 would choose him for a successor. He spoke with the Earl of
 
 308 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXI 
 
 Morton on the subject of despatching Darnley, and represented 
 it as an enterprise which had the approbation of the Queen. 
 Morton refused to stir in a matter of so great consequence, 
 unless he received a mandate under the Queen's hand. Both- 
 well undertook to procure him such a warrant, but he never 
 kept his word. This was confessed by Morton at his death. 
 When it was asked of him by the clergyman who received his 
 confession, why he had not prevented the conspiracy, by making 
 it public 1 he replied, that there was no one to whom he could 
 confess it with safety. " The Queen," he said, " was herself iu 
 the plot ; and if I had told Darnley, his folly was so great that 
 I am certain he would have betrayed it to his wife, and so my 
 own destruction would have been assured." But though he did 
 not acknowledge more than I have told you, Morton was always 
 supposed to have been one of the active conspirators ; and it 
 was universally believed that a daring and profligate relation of 
 his, called Archibald Douglas, parson of Glasgow, was one of 
 the actual murderers. 1 While these suspicions hung over 
 Morton himself, he seems to have had no reason for believing 
 Mary's guilt, excepting what Bothwell told him. It seems 
 probable that Maitland of Lethington also knew the fatal and 
 guilty Becret. Morton and he, however, were both men of deep 
 sagacity. They foresaw that Bothwell would render himself, 
 and perhaps the Queen also, odious to the nation by the dark 
 and bloody action which he meditated ; and therefore they 
 resolved to let him run his course, in the hope that he would 
 come to a speedy fall, and that they themselves might succeed 
 to the supreme power. 
 
 While these schemes were in agitation against his life, 
 Daruley fell ill at Glasgow, and hia indisposition proved to be 
 the smallpox. The Queen sent her physician, and after an 
 interval went herself to wait upon him, and an apparent recon- 
 ciliation was effected between them. They came together to 
 Edinburgh on the 31st January 1566-67. The King was 
 lodged in a religious house called the Kirk-of-Field, just with- 
 out the walls of the city. 2 The Queen and the infant Prince 
 
 1 Douglas was twenty years afterwards brought to trial for his alleged 
 participation in the murder of Daruley, and acquitted. ARNOT'S Criminal 
 Trial*. 
 
 a The Kirk-of-Field stood on part of the site of the College of Edii> 
 burgh.
 
 1567 DEATH OF DARNLEY 309 
 
 were accommodated in the palace of Holyrood. The reason 
 assigned for their living separate was the danger of the child 
 catching the smallpox. But the Queen showed much atten- 
 tion to her husband, visiting him frequently ; and they never 
 seemed to have been on better terms than when the conspiracy 
 against Darnley's life was on the eve of being executed. Mean- 
 while Darnley and his groom of the chamber were alone during 
 the night time, and separated from any other persons, when 
 measures were taken for his destruction in the following horrible 
 manner : 
 
 On the evening of the 9th February, several persons, kins- 
 men, retainers, and servants of the Earl of Bothwell, came in 
 secret to the Kirk -of -Field. They had with them a great 
 quantity of gunpowder ; and by means of false keys they 
 obtained entrance into the cellars of the building, where they 
 disposed the powder in the vaults under Darnley's apartment, 
 and especially beneath the spot where his bed was placed. 
 About two hours after midnight upon the ensuing morning, 
 Bothwell himself came disguised in a riding cloak, to see the 
 execution of the cruel project. Two of his ruffians went in 
 and took means of firing the powder, by lighting a piece of 
 slow-burning match at one end, and placing the other amongst 
 the gunpowder. They remained for some time watching the 
 event, and Bothwell became so impatient, that it was with 
 difficulty he was prevented from entering the house, to see 
 whether the light had not been extinguished by some accident. 
 One of his accomplices, by looking through a window, ascer- 
 tained that it was still burning. 'The explosion presently took 
 place, blew up the Kirk-of-Field, and alarmed the whole city. 
 The body of Darnley was found in the adjoining orchard. The 
 bed in which he lay had preserved him from all action of the 
 fire, which occasioned a general belief that he and his chamber- 
 groom, who was found in the same situation, had been strangled 
 and removed before the house was blown up. But this was a 
 mistake. It is clearly proved, by the evidence of those who 
 were present at the event, that there were no means employed 
 but gunpowder a mode of destruction sufficiently powerful to 
 have rendered any other unnecessary.
 
 310 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXI 1 
 
 Marriage of Mary and Bothwell Manfs Surrender to the Confederated 
 Lords at Carberry Her Imprisonment in Lochleven Castle, and 
 Escape thence Battle of Langside, and Flight to England Regency 
 and Murder of Murray Civil Wars in Scotland Regency of 
 Morton His Trial and Execution Raid of Ruthven Stewart, 
 Earl of Arran His Disgrace and Death 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Elizabeth. 
 France: Charles IX., Henry III. 
 
 15671586 
 
 THE horrible murder of the unhappy Darnley excited the 
 strongest suspicions, and the greatest discontent, in the city of 
 Edinburgh, and through the whole kingdom. Bothwell was 
 pointed out by the general voice as the author of the murder ; 
 and as he still continued to enjoy the favour of Mary, her 
 reputation was not spared. To have brought this powerful 
 criminal to an open and impartial trial, would have been the 
 only way for the Queen to recover her popularity ; and Mary 
 made a show of doing this public justice, but under circum- 
 stances which favoured the criminal. 
 
 Lennox, father of the murdered Darnley, had, as was his 
 natural duty, accused Bothwell of the murder of his son. But 
 he received little countenance in prosecuting the accused. 
 Everything seemed to be done as hastily as if it were 
 determined to defeat the operations of justice. Lennox re- 
 ceived information on the 28th of March that the 12th of 
 April was appointed for the day of trial ; and, at so short 
 warning as fourteen days, he was summoned, as nearest relatiou 
 of the murdered monarch, to appear as accuser, and to support 
 the charge he had made against Bothwell. The Earl of 
 Lennox complained that the time allowed him to prepare the 
 charge and evidence necessary for convicting so powerful a 
 criminal was greatly too short; but he could not get it ex- 
 tended. 
 
 It was a usual thing in Scotland for persons accused of 
 crimes to come to the bar of a court of justice attended by all
 
 1567 TRIAL OF BOTH WELL 311 
 
 their friends, retainers, and dependents, the number of whom 
 was frequently so great, that the judges and accusers were 
 overawed, and became afraid to proceed in the investigation ; 
 so that the purposes of justice were for the time frustrated. 
 Bothwell, conscious of guilt, was desirous to use this means 
 of protection to the utmost. He appeared in Edinburgh with 
 full five thousand attendants. Two hundred chosen musketeers 
 kept close by his side, and guarded the doors of the court as 
 soon as the criminal had entered. In such circumstances, 
 there could be no chance of a fair trial. Lennox did not 
 appear, saving by one of his vassals, who protested against the 
 proceedings of the day. No charge was made, no proof of 
 innocence, of course, was required, and a jury, consisting 
 of nobles and gentlemen of the first rank, acquitted Bothwell 
 of a crime of which all the world believed him to be guilty. 
 
 The public mind remained dissatisfied with this mockery of 
 justice ; but Bothwell, without regarding the murmurs of the 
 people, hurried forward to possess himself of the situation 
 which he had made vacant by the murder of Darnley. He 
 convened a number of the principal nobility, at a 
 
 , . . , , ..*", ,, f l . 19th April. 
 
 feast given in a tavern, and prevailed on them to sign 
 a bond, in which they not only declared Bothwell altogether 
 innocent of the King's death, but recommended him as the 
 fittest person whom her Majesty could choose for a husband. 
 Morton, Maitland, and others, who afterwards were Mary's 
 bitter enemies and accusers, subscribed this remarkable deed, 
 either because they were afraid of the consequences of a refusal, 
 or that they thought it the readiest and safest course for 
 accomplishing their own purposes, to encourage Bothwell and 
 the Queen to run headlong to their ruin, by completing a 
 marriage which must be disgustful to the whole kingdom. 
 
 Murray, the most important person in Scotland, had kept 
 aloof from all these proceedings. He was in Fife when the 
 King was murdered, and, about three days before Bothwell's 
 trial, he obtained leave of his sister the Queen to travel to 
 France. Probably he did not consider that his own person 
 would be safe, should Bothwell rise to be King. 
 
 The Earl of Bothwell, thus authorised by the apparent 
 consent of the nobility, and, no doubt, thinking himself secure 
 of the Queen's approbation, suddenly appeared at the bridge of 
 Craraond, with a thousand horse, as Mary arrived there on
 
 312 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP, xxxil 
 
 her return from Stirling to Edinburgh. Bothwell took the 
 Queen's horse by the bridle, and surrounding and disarming 
 her attendants, he led her, as if by an appearance of force, to 
 the strong castle of Dunbar, of which he was governor. On 
 this occasion Mary seems neither to have attempted to resist, 
 nor to have expressed that feeling of anger and shame which 
 would have been proper to her as a queen and as a woman. 
 Her attendants were assured by the officers of Bothwell, that 
 she was carried off in consequence of her own consent; and 
 considering that such an outrage was offered to a sovereign of 
 her high rank and bold spirit, her tame submission and silence 
 under it seem scarce otherwise to be accounted for. They 
 remained at Dunbar ten days, after which they again appeared 
 in Edinburgh, apparently reconciled ; the Earl carefully leading 
 the Queen's palfrey, and conducting her up to the castle, the 
 government of which was held by one of his adherents. 
 
 Whilst these strange proceedings took place, Bothwell had 
 been able to procure a sentence of divorce against his wife, a 
 sister of the Earl of Huntly. On the 12th of May the Queen 
 made a public declaration, that she forgave Bothwell the late 
 violence which he had committed, and that, although she was 
 at first highly displeased with him, she was now resolved not 
 only to grant him her pardon, but also to promote him to 
 further honours. She was as good as her word, for she created 
 him Duke of Orkney; and, on the 15th of the same month, 
 did Mary, with unpardonable indiscretion, commit the great 
 folly of marrying this ambitious and profligate man, stained as 
 he was with the blood of her husband. 
 
 The Queen was not long in discovering that by this unhappy 
 marriage she had gotten a more ruthless and wicked husband 
 than she had in the flexible Darnley. Bothwell used her 
 grossly ill, and being disappointed in his plans of getting the 
 young Prince into his keeping, used such upbraiding language 
 to Mary, that she prayed for a knife with which to stab herself, 
 rather than endure his ill-treatment. 
 
 In the meantime the public discontent rose high, and 
 Morton, Maitland, and others, who had been privy to the 
 murder of Darnley, placed themselves, notwithstanding, at the 
 head of a numerous party of the nobility, who resolved to 
 revenge his death, and remove Bothwell from his usurped 
 power. They took arms hastily, and had nearly surprised the
 
 1567 MARY'S SURRENDER 313 
 
 Queen and Bothwell, while feasting in the castle of the Lord 
 Bortliwick, from whence they fled to Dunbar, the Queen being 
 concealed in the disguise of a page. 
 
 The confederated lords marched towards Dunbar, and the 
 Queen and Bothwell, having assembled an army, advanced to 
 the encounter, and met them on Carberry Hill, not far from 
 the place where the battle of Pinkie was fought. This was on 
 the 15th of June 1567. Mary would have acted more wisely 
 in postponing the threatened action, for the Hamiltons, in 
 great force, were on their way to join her. But she had been 
 accustomed to gain advantages by rapid and ready movements, 
 and was not at first sufficiently aware what an unfavourable im- 
 pression existed against her even in her own army. Many, if 
 not most, of those troops who had joined the Queen, had little 
 inclination to fight in Bothwell's cause. He himself, in a 
 bravado, offered to prove his innocence of Darnley's murder, 
 by a duel in the lists with any of the opposite lords who should 
 affirm his guilt. The valiant Kirkaldy of Grange, Murray of 
 Tullibardin, and Lord Lindsay of the Byres, successively 
 undertook the combat ; but Bothwell found exceptions to each 
 of them, and, finally, it appeared that this wicked man had not 
 courage to fight with any one in that quarrel. In the mean- 
 time the Queen's army began to disband, and it became obvious 
 that they would not fight in her cause, while they considered it 
 as the same with that of Bothwell. She therefore recommended 
 to him to fly from the field of action ; an advice which he was 
 not slow in following, riding to Dunbar as fast as he could, and 
 from thence escaping by sea. 
 
 Mary surrendered herself, upon promise of respect and kind 
 treatment, to the laird of Grange, and was conducted by him 
 to the headquarters of the confederate army. When she 
 arrived there, the lords received her with silent respect ; but 
 some of the common soldiers hooted at and insulted her, until 
 Grange, drawing his sword, compelled them to be silent. The 
 lords adopted the resolution of returning to the capital, and 
 conveying Mary thither, surrounded by their troops. 
 
 As the unhappy Queen approached Edinburgh, led as it were 
 in triumph by the victors, the most coarse and insulting be- 
 haviour was used towards her by the lower classes. There 
 was a banner prepared for this insurrection, displaying on the 
 one side the portrait of Darnley, as he lay murdered under a
 
 314 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXII 
 
 tree in the fatal orchard, with these words embroidered, "Judge, 
 and avenge my cause, Lord !" and on the other side, the 
 little Prince on his knees, holding up his hands, as if praying 
 to Heaven to punish his father's murderers. As the Queen 
 rode through the streets, with her hair loose, her garments dis- 
 ordered, covered with dust, and overpowered with grief, shame, 
 and fatigue, this fatal flag was displayed before her eyes, while 
 the voices of the rude multitude upbraided her with having 
 been an accomplice in Darnley's murder. The same cries were 
 repeated, and the same insulting banner displayed, before the 
 windows of the Lord Provost's house, to which she was for a 
 few hours committed as if a prisoner. The better class of 
 craftsmen and citizens were at length moved by her sorrows, 
 and showed such a desire to take her part, that the lords 
 determined to remove her from the city, where respect to her 
 birth and misfortunes seemed likely to create partisans, in spite 
 of her own indiscretions, and the resentment of her enemies. 
 Accordingly, on the next evening, being 16th June 1567, 
 Mary, in disguised apparel, and escorted by a strong armed 
 force, was conveyed from Holyrood to the castle of Lochleven, 
 which stands on a little island, surrounded by the lake of the 
 same name, and was there detained a prisoner. 
 
 The insurgent lords now formed themselves into a Secret 
 Council, for managing the affairs of the nation. Their first 
 attention was turned to securing Bothwell, although, perhaps, 
 there may have been some even among their own number, 
 Morton, for example, and Maitland, who had been participant 
 with him in the murder of Darnley, who could not be very 
 desirous that he should be produced on a public trial. But it 
 was necessary to make a show of pursuing him, and many were 
 sincerely desirous that he should be taken. 
 
 Kirkaldy of Grange followed Bothwell with two vessels, and 
 had nearly surprised him in the harbour of Lerwick, the fugi- 
 tive making his escape at one issue of the bay, while Grange 
 entered at another ; and Bothwell might even then have been 
 captured, but that Grange's ship ran upon a rock, and was 
 wrecked, though the crew escaped. Bothwell was only saved 
 for a more melancholy fate. He took to piracy in the Northern 
 Seas, in order to support himself and his sailors. He was in 
 consequence assaulted and taken by some Danish ships of war. 
 The Danes threw him into the dungeons of the castle of Mai-
 
 1567 MARY'S IMPRISONMENT 315 
 
 may, where he died in captivity, about the end of the year 
 1576. It is said that this atrocious criminal confessed at his 
 death that he had conducted the murder of Darnley, by the 
 assistance of Murray, Maitland, and Morton, and that Mary 
 was altogether guiltless of that crime. But there is little 
 reliance to be placed on the declaration of so wicked a man, 
 even if it were certain he had made it. 
 
 Meantime, poor Mary reaped the full consequences of 
 Bothwell's guilt, and of her own infatuated attachment to him. 
 She was imprisoned in a rude and inconvenient tower, on a 
 small islet, where there was scarce room to walk fifty yards ; 
 and not even the intercession of Queen Elizabeth, who seems 
 for the time to have been alarmed at the successful insurrec- 
 tion of subjects against their sovereign, could procure any 
 mitigation of her captivity. There was a proposal to proceed 
 against the Queen as an accomplice in Darnley's murder, and 
 to take her life under that pretence. But the Lords of the 
 Secret Council resolved to adopt somewhat of a gentler course, 
 by compelling Mary to surrender her crown to her son, then 
 an infant, and to make the Earl of Murray regent during the 
 child's minority. Deeds to this purpose were drawn up, and 
 sent to the castle of Lochleven, to be signed by the Queen. 
 Lord Lindsay, the rudest, most bigoted, and fiercest of the 
 confederated lords, was deputed to enforce Mary's compliance 
 with the commands of the Council He behaved with such 
 peremptory brutality as had perhaps been expected, and was so 
 unmanly as to pinch with his iron glove the arm of the poor 
 Queen, to compel her to subscribe the deeds. 
 
 If Mary had any quarter to which, in her disastrous condi- 
 tion, she might look for love and favour, it was to her brother 
 Murray. She may have been criminal she had certainly been 
 grossly infatuated yet she deserved her brother's kindness and 
 compassion. She had loaded him with favours, and pardoned 
 him considerable offences. Unquestionably she expected more 
 favour from him than she met with. But Murray was ambi- 
 tious ; and ambition breaks through the ties of blood, and 
 forgets the obligations of gratitude. He visited his imprisoned 
 sister and benefactress in Lochleven Castle, but it was not to 
 bring her comfort ; on the contrary, he pressed all her errors 
 on her with such hard-hearted severity, that she burst into 
 floods of tears, and abandoned herself to despair.
 
 316 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP, xxxn 
 
 Murray accepted of the regency, and in doing so broke all 
 remaining ties of tenderness betwixt himself and his sister. 
 He was now at the head of the ruling faction, con 
 6 i stm f what were called the King's Lords ; while 
 such of the nobility as desired that Mary, being now 
 freed from the society of Bothwell, should be placed at liberty, 
 and restored to the administration of the kingdom, were termed 
 the Queen's Party. The strict and sagacious government of 
 Murray imposed silence and submission for a time upon this 
 last-named faction; but a singular incident changed the face 
 of things for a moment, and gave a gleam of hope to the un- 
 fortunate captive. 
 
 Sir William Douglas, the laird of Lochleven, owner of the 
 castle where Mary was imprisoned, was a half-brother by the 
 mother's side of the Regent Murray. This baron discharged 
 with severe fidelity the task of Mary's jailor ; but his youngest 
 brother, George Douglas, became more sensible to the Queen's 
 distress, and perhaps to her beauty, than to the interests of the 
 Regent, or of his own family. A plot laid by him for the 
 Queen's deliverance was discovered, and he was expelled from 
 the island in consequence. But he kept up a correspondence 
 with a kinsman of his own, called Little Douglas, a boy of 
 fifteen or sixteen, who had remained in the castle. On Sunday, 
 the 2d May 1568, this Little William Douglas, contrived to 
 steal the keys of the castle while the family were at supper. 
 He let Mary and her attendant out of the tower when all had 
 gone to rest locked the gates of the castle to prevent pursuit 
 placed the Queen and her waiting-woman in a little skiff, and 
 rowed them to the shore, throwing the keys of the castle into 
 the lake in the course of their passage. Just when they were 
 about to Bet out on this adventurous voyage, the youthful 
 pilot had made a signal, by a light in a particular window 
 visible at the upper end of the lake, to intimate that all was 
 safe. Lord Seaton and a party of the Hamiltons were waiting 
 at the landing-place. The Queen instantly mounted, and 
 hurried off to Niddry Castle, in West Lothian ; she proceeded 
 next day to Hamilton. The news flew like lightning throughout 
 the country, and spread enthusiasm everywhere. The people 
 remembered Mary's gentleness, grace, and beauty, they re- 
 membered her misfortunes also and if they reflected on her 
 errors, they thought they had been punished with sufficient
 
 1567-8 BATTLE OF LANGSIDE 317 
 
 severity. On Sunday, Mary was a sad and helpless captive in 
 a lonely tower. On the Saturday following, she was at the 
 head of a powerful confederacy, by which nine earls, nine 
 bishops, eighteen lords, and many gentlemen of high rank, 
 engaged to defend her person and restore her power. But this 
 gleam of success was only temporary. 
 
 It was the Queen's purpose to place her person in security 
 in the castle of Dumbarton, and her army, under the Earl of 
 Argyle, proposed to carry her thither in a species of triumph. 
 The Regent was lying at Glasgow with much inferior forces ; 
 but, with just confidence in his own military skill, as well as 
 the talents of Morton, and the valour of Kirkaldy, and other 
 experienced soldiers, he determined to meet the Queen's Lords 
 in their proposed march, and to give them battle. 
 
 On 13th May 1568 Murray occupied the village of Lang- 
 side, which lay full in the march of the Queen's army. The 
 Hamiltons, and other gentlemen of Mary's troop, rushed forth 
 with ill-considered valour to dispute the pass. They fought, 
 however, with obstinacy, after the Scottish manner; that is, 
 they pressed on each other front to front, each fixing his spear 
 in his opponent's target, and then endeavouring to bear him 
 down, as two bulls do when they encounter each other. 
 Morton decided the battle by attacking the flank of the 
 Hamiltons, while their column was closely engaged in the 
 front. The measure was decisive, and the Queen's army was 
 completely routed. 
 
 Queen Mary beheld this final and fatal defeat from a castle 
 called Crookstane, about four miles from Paisley, where she 
 and Darnley had spent some happy days after their marriage, 
 and which, therefore, must have been the scene of bitter re- 
 collections. It was soon evident that there was no resource 
 but in flight, and, escorted by Lord Herries and a few faithful 
 followers, she rode sixty miles before she stopped at the abbey 
 of Dundrennan, in Galloway. From this place she had the 
 means of retreating either to France or England, as she should 
 ultimately determine. In France she was sure to have been 
 well received; but England afforded a nearer, and, as she 
 thought, an equally safe place of refuge. 
 
 Forgetting, therefore, the various causes of emulation which 
 existed betwixt Elizabeth and herself, and remembering only 
 the smooth and flattering words which she had received from
 
 318 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXII 
 
 her sister sovereign, it did not occur to the Scottish Queen 
 that she should incur any risk by throwing herself upon the 
 hospitality of England. It may also be supposed, that poor 
 Mary, amongst whose faults want of generosity could not be 
 reckoned, judged of Elizabeth according to the manner in 
 which she would herself have treated the Queen of England 
 in the same situation. She therefore resolved to take refuge 
 in Elizabeth's kingdom, in spite of the opposition of her wiser 
 attendants. They kneeled and entreated in vaiu. She entered 
 the fatal boat, crossed the Solway, and delivered herself up to 
 a gentleman named Lowther, the English deputy -warden. 
 Much surprised, doubtless, at the incident, he sent express 
 to inform Queen Elizabeth and receiving the Scottish Queen 
 with as much respect as he had the means of showing, lodged 
 her in Carlisle Castle. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth had two courses in her power, which might 
 be more or less generous, but were alike just and lawful She 
 might have received Queen Mary honourably, and afforded 
 her the succour she petitioned for ; or, if she did not think 
 that expedient, she might have allowed her to remain in her 
 dominions, at liberty to depart from them freely, as she had 
 entered them voluntarily. 
 
 But Elizabeth, great as she was upon other occasions of her 
 reign, acted on the present from mean and envious motives. 
 She saw in the fugitive who implored her protection a princess 
 who possessed a right of succession to the crown of England, 
 which, by the Catholic part of her subjects at least, was held 
 superior to her own. She remembered that Mary had been led 
 to assume the arms and titles of the English monarchy, or 
 rather, that the French had assumed them in her name, when 
 she was in childhood. She recollected that Mary had been 
 her rival in accomplishments ; and certainly she did not forget 
 that she was her superior in youth and beauty ; and had the 
 advantage, as she had expressed it herself, to be the mother of 
 a fair son, while she remained a barren stock. Elizabeth, 
 therefore, considered the Scottish Queen not as a sister and 
 friend in distress, but as an enemy, over whom circumstances 
 had given her power, and determined upon reducing her to the 
 condition of a captive. 
 
 In pursuance of the line of conduct to which this mean train 
 of reasoning led, the unfortunate Mary was surrounded by
 
 1 568 ELIZABETH'S UNJUST CONDUCT 319 
 
 Eiigliah guards ; and, as Elizabeth reasonably doubted that if 
 she were left upon the Border, the fugitive Queen might 
 obtain aid from her adherents in Scotland, she was removed to 
 Bolton Castle, in Yorkshire. But some pretext was wanting 
 for a conduct so violent, so ungenerous, and so unjust, and 
 Elizabeth contrived to find one. 
 
 The Regent Murray, upon Mary's flight to England, had 
 endeavoured to vindicate his conduct in the eyes of Queen 
 Elizabeth, by alleging that his sister had been accessory to the 
 murder of her husband Darnley, in order that she might marry 
 her paramour Bothwell. Now, although this, supposing it to 
 be true, was very criminal conduct, yet Elizabeth had not the 
 least title to constitute herself judge in the matter. Mary was 
 no subject of hers, nor, according to the law of nations, had the 
 English Queen any right to act as umpire in the quarrel 
 between the Scottish sovereign and her subjects. But she 
 extorted, in the following manner, a sort of acquiescence in her 
 right to decide, from the Scottish Queen. 
 
 The messengers of Queen Elizabeth informed Mary, that 
 their mistress regretted extremely that she could not at once 
 admit her to her presence, nor give her the affectionate recep- 
 tion which she longed to afford her, until her visitor stood 
 clear, in the eyes of the world, of the scandalous accusations 
 of her Scottish subjects. Mary at once undertook to make her 
 innocence evident to Elizabeth's satisfaction; and this the 
 Queen of England pretended to consider as a call upon herself 
 to act as umpire in the quarrel betwixt Mary and the party by 
 which she had been deposed and exiled. It was in vain that 
 Mary remonstrated, that, in agreeing to remove Elizabeth's 
 scruples, she acted merely out of respect to her opinion, and a 
 desire to conciliate her favour, but not with the purpose of 
 constituting the English Queen her judge in a formal trial. 
 Elizabeth was determined to keep the advantage which she 
 had attained, and to act as if Mary had, of her full free will, 
 rendered her rival the sole arbiter of her fate. 
 
 The Queen of England accordingly appointed commissioners 
 to hear the parties, and consider the evidence which was to 
 be laid before them by both sides. The Regent Murray 
 appeared in person before these commissioners, in the odious 
 character of the accuser of his sister, benefactress, and sovereign. 
 Queen Mary also sent the most able of her adherents, the
 
 320 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXI I 
 
 Bishop of Ross, Lord Herries, and others, to plead the case on 
 her side. 
 
 The Commission met at York in October 1568. The 
 proceedings commenced with a singular attempt to establish 
 the obsolete question of the alleged supremacy of England over 
 Scotland. " You come hither," said the English commissioners 
 to the Regent and his assistants, "to submit the differences 
 which divide the kingdom of Scotland to the Queen of England, 
 and therefore I first require of you to pay her Grace the 
 homage due to her." The Earl of Murray blushed and was 
 silent. But Maitland of Lethington answered with spirit 
 " When Elizabeth restores to Scotland the earldom of Hun- 
 tingdon, with Cumberland, Northumberland, and such other 
 lands as Scotland did of old possess in England, we will do 
 such homage for these territories as was done by the ancient 
 sovereigns of Scotland who enjoyed them. As to the crown 
 and kingdom of Scotland, they are more free than those of 
 England, which lately paid Peter-pence to Rome." 
 
 This question being waived, they entered on the proper 
 business of the Commission. It was not without hesitation 
 that Murray was induced to state his accusation in explicit 
 terms, and there was still greater difficulty in obtaining from 
 him any evidence in support of the odious charges of matrimonial 
 infidelity, and accession to the murder of her husband, with 
 which that accusation charged Mary. It is true, the Queen's 
 conduct had been unguarded and imprudent, but there was no 
 arguing from thence that she was guilty of the foul crime 
 charged. Something like proof was wanted, and at length a box 
 of letters and papers was produced, stated to have been taken 
 from a servant of Bothwell, called Dalgleish. These letters, if 
 genuine, certainly proved that Mary was a paramour of Bothwell 
 while Darnley was yet alive, and that she knew and approved of 
 the murder of that ill-fated young man. But the letters were 
 alleged by the Queen's commissioners to be gross forgeries, devised 
 for the purpose of slandering their mistress. It is most remark- 
 able that Dalgleish had been condemned and executed without 
 a word being asked him about these letters, even if it had been 
 only to prove that they had been found in his possession. Lord 
 Herries and the Bishop of Ross did not rest satisfied with de- 
 fending the Queen ; they charged Murray himself with having 
 confederated with Bothwell for the destruction of Darnley.
 
 1568-70 ELIZABETH'S UNJUST CONDUCT 321 
 
 At the end of five months' investigation, the Queen of 
 England informed both parties that she had, on the one hand, 
 seen nothing which induced her to doubt the worth and honour 
 of the Earl of Murray, while, on the other hand, he had, in her 
 opinion, proved nothing of the criminal charges which he had 
 brought against his sovereign. She was therefore, she said, 
 determined to leave the affairs of Scotland as she had found 
 them. 
 
 To have treated both parties impartially, as her sentence 
 seemed intended to imply her desire to do, the Queen ought 
 to have restored Mary to liberty. But while Murray was 
 sent down with the loan of a large sum of money, Mary was 
 retained in that captivity which was only to end with her life. 
 
 Murray returned to Scotland, having had all the advantage 
 of the conference at York. His coffers were replenished, and 
 his power confirmed, by the favour of Queen Elizabeth ; and 
 he had little difficulty in scattering the remains of the Queen's 
 Lords, who, in fact, had never been able to make head since 
 the battle of Langside, and the flight of their mistress. 
 
 In the meantime some extraordinary events took place in 
 England. The Duke of Norfolk had formed a plan to restore 
 Queen Mary to liberty, and was in recompense to be rewarded 
 with her hand in marriage. The Regent Murray had been 
 admitted into the secret of this plot, although it may be 
 supposed the object was not very acceptable to him. Many of 
 the great nobles had agreed to join in the undertaking, par- 
 ticularly the powerful Earls of Westmoreland and Northumber- 
 land. The plot of Norfolk was discovered and proved against 
 him chiefly by the declarations of Murray, who meanly betrayed 
 the secret entrusted to him ; Norfolk was in consequence seized 
 upon, committed to confinement, and, a few months afterwards, 
 upon the discovery of some new intrigues, was tried and 
 executed. 
 
 But before this catastrophe, Northumberland and Westmore- 
 land rushed into a hasty rebellion, which they were unable to 
 conduct with sufficient vigour. Their troops dispersed without 
 a battle before the army which Queen Elizabeth sent against 
 them. Westmoreland found a secure refuge among the Scot- 
 tish Borderers, who were favourable to the cause of Mary. 
 They assisted him in his escape to the sea-coast, and he finally 
 made his way to Flanders, and died in exile, Northumberland 
 
 21
 
 322 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXll 
 
 was less fortunate. A Borderer, named Hector Armstrong of 
 Harlaw, treacherously betrayed him to the Regent Murray, 
 who refused indeed to deliver him up to Queen Elizabeth, 
 but detained him prisoner in that same lonely castle of Loch- 
 leven, which had been lately the scene of Mary's captivity. 
 
 All these successive events tended to establish the power of 
 Murray, and to diminish the courage of such lords as remained 
 attached to the opposite party. But it happens frequently, 
 that when men appear most secure of the object they have 
 been toiling for, their views are suddenly and strangely dis- 
 appointed. A blow was impending over Murray from a quarter 
 which, if named to the haughty Regent, he would probably have 
 despised, since it originated in the resentment of a private man. 
 
 After the battle of Langside, six of the Hamiltons, who 
 had been most active on that occasion, were sentenced to die, 
 as being guilty of treason against James VI., in having espoused 
 his mother's cause. In this doom there was little justice, con- 
 sidering how the country was divided between the claims of 
 the mother and the son. But the decree was not acted upon, 
 and the persons condemned received their pardon through the 
 mediation of John Knox with the Regent. 
 
 One of the individuals thus pardoned was Hamilton of Both- 
 wellhaugh, a man of a fierce and vindictive character. Like 
 others in his condition, he was punished by the forfeiture of 
 his property, although his life was spared. His wife had 
 brought him, as her portion, the lands of Woodhouselee, near 
 Roslin, and these were bestowed by Murray upon one of his 
 favourites. This person exercised the right so rudely, as to 
 turn Hamilton's wife out of her own house undressed, and un- 
 protected from the fury of the weather. In consequence of 
 this brutal treatment, she became insane, and died. Her 
 husband vowed revenge, not on the actual author of his mis- 
 fortune, but upon the Regent Murray, whom he considered as 
 the original cause of it, and whom his family prejudices induced 
 him to regard as the usurper of the sovereign power, and the 
 oppressor of the name and house of Hamilton. There is little 
 doubt that the Archbishop of St. Andrews, and some others 
 of his name, encouraged Bothwellhaugh in this desperate 
 resolution. 
 
 The assassin took his measures with every mark of delibera- 
 tion. Having learnt that the Regent was to pass through
 
 1570 MURDER OF MURRAY 323 
 
 Linlithgow on a certain day, he secretly introduced himself 
 into an empty house belonging to the Archbishop 
 of St. Andrews, which had in front a wooden balcony 
 looking upon the street. Bothwellhaugh hung a black 
 cloth on the wall of the apartment where he lay, that his shadow 
 might not be seen from without, and spread a mattrass on the 
 floor, that the sound of his feet might not be heard from 
 beneath. To secure his escape he fastened a fleet horse in the 
 garden behind the house, and pulled down the lintel stones 
 from the posts of the garden door, so that he might be able to 
 pass through it on horseback. He also strongly barricaded 
 the front door of the house, which opened to the street of the 
 town. Having thus prepared all for concealment until the 
 deed was done, and for escape afterwards, he armed himself 
 with a loaded carabine, shut himself up in the lonely chamber, 
 and waited the arrival of his victim. 
 
 Some friend of Murray transmitted to him a hint of the 
 danger which he might incur, in passing through the street of 
 a place in which he was known to have enemies, and advised 
 that he should avoid it by going round on the outside of the 
 town ; or, at least, by riding hastily past the lodging which 
 was more particularly suspected, as belonging to the Hamiltons. 
 But the Regent, thinking that the step recommended would 
 have an appearance of timidity, held on his way through the 
 crowded street. As he came opposite the fatal balcony, his 
 horse being somewhat retarded by the number of spectators, 
 Bothwellhaugh had time to take a deliberate aim. He fired 
 the carabine, and the Regent fell, mortally wounded. The ball, 
 after passing through his body, killed the horse of a gentleman 
 who rode on his right hand. His attendants rushed furiously 
 at the door of the house from which the shot had issued ; but 
 Bothwellhaugh's precautions had been so securely taken that 
 they were unable to force their entrance till he had mounted 
 his good horse, and escaped through the garden gate. He was 
 notwithstanding pursued so closely, that he had very nearly 
 been taken ; but after spur and whip had both failed, he 
 pricked his horse with his dagger, compelled him to take a 
 desperate leap over a ditch, which his pursuers were unable to 
 cross, and thus made his escape. 
 
 The Regent died in the course of the night, leaving a 
 character which has been, perhaps, too highly extolled by one
 
 324 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXII 
 
 class of authors, and too much depreciated by another, according 
 as his conduct to his sister was approved or condemned. 
 
 The murderer escaped to France. In the civil wars of that 
 country an attempt was made to engage him, as a known 
 desperado, in the assassination of the Admiral Coligni ; but he 
 resented it as a deadly insult. He had slain a man in Scotland, 
 he said, from whom he had sustained a mortal injury ; but the 
 world could not engage him to attempt the life of one against 
 whom he had no personal cause of quarrel. 
 
 The death of Murray had been an event expected by many 
 of Queen Mary's adherents. The very night after it happened, 
 Scott of Buccleuch and Ker of Fairniehirst broke into England, 
 and ravaged the frontier with more than their wonted severity. 
 When it was remarked by one of the sufferers under this foray, 
 that the Regent would punish the party concerned in such 
 illegal violence, the Borderer replied contemptuously, that the 
 Regent was as cold as his bridle-bit. This served to show that 
 their leaders had been privy to Bothwellhaugh's action, and now 
 desired to take advantage of it, in order to give grounds for 
 war between the countries. But Queen Elizabeth was contented 
 to send a small army to the frontier, to burn the castles and 
 ravage the estates of the two clans which had been engaged in the 
 hostile inroad ; a service which they executed with much severity 
 on the clans of Scott and Ker, without doing injury to those 
 other Borderers against whom their mistress had no complaint. 
 
 Upon the death of Murray, Lennox was chosen Regent. 
 He was the father of the murdered Darnley, yet showed no 
 excessive thirst of vengeance. He endeavoured to procure a 
 union of parties, for the purpose of domestic peace. But men's 
 minds on both sides had become too much exasperated against 
 each other. The Queen's party was strengthened by Maitland 
 of Lethington and Kirkaldy of Grange joining that faction, 
 after having been long the boast of that of the King. Lething- 
 ton we have often mentioned as one of the ablest men in 
 Scotland, and Kirkaldy was certainly one of the bravest. 
 He was, besides, Governor of Edinburgh Castle, and his de- 
 claring that he held that important place for the Queen gave 
 great spirit to Mary's adherents. At the same time, 
 they were deprived of a stronghold of scarcely in- 
 ferior consequence, by the loss of Dumbarton Castle in the 
 following extraordinary manner.
 
 1570 CIVIL WARS 325 
 
 This fortress is one of the strongest places in the world. It 
 is situated on a rock, which rises almost perpendicularly from 
 a level plain to the height of several hundred feet. On the 
 summit of this rock the buildings are situated, and as there 
 is only one access from below, which rises by steps, and is 
 strongly guarded and fortified, the fort might be almost held 
 to be impregnable, that is, impossible to be taken. One Cap- 
 tain Crawford of Jordauhill, a distinguished adherent of the 
 Bang's party, resolved, nevertheless, to make an attempt on this 
 formidable castle. 
 
 He took advantage of a misty and moonless night to bring 
 to the foot of the castle-rock the scaling-ladders which he had 
 provided, choosing for his terrible experiment the place where 
 the rock was highest, and where less pains were taken to keep 
 a regular guard. This choice was fortunate ; for the first 
 ladder broke with the weight of the men who attempted to 
 mount, and the noise of the fall must have betrayed them had 
 there been any sentinel within hearing. Crawford, assisted by 
 a soldier who had deserted from the castle, and was acting as 
 his guide, renewed the attempt in person, and having scrambled 
 up to a projecting ledge of rock where there was some footing, 
 contrived to make fast the ladder, by tying it to the roots of a 
 tree, which grew about midway up the rock. Here they found 
 a small flat surface, sufficient, however, to afford footing to the 
 whole party, which was, of course, very few in number. In 
 scaling the second precipice, another accident took place : 
 One of the party, subject to epileptic fits, was seized by one 
 of these attacks, brought on perhaps by terror, while he was 
 in the act of climbing up the ladder. His illness made it im- 
 possible for him either to ascend or descend. To have slain 
 the man would have been a cruel expedient, besides that the 
 fall of his body might have alarmed the garrison. Crawford 
 caused him, therefore, to be tied to the ladder, which they 
 turned, and thus mounted with ease. When the party gained 
 the summit, they slew the sentinel ere he had time to give the 
 alarm, and easily surprised the slumbering garrison, who had 
 trusted too much to the security of their castle to keep good 
 watch. This exploit of Crawford may compare with anything 
 of the kind which we read of in history. 
 
 Hamilton, the Archbishop of St. Andrews, was made prisoner 
 in Dumbarton, where he had taken refuge, as he was par-
 
 326 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXI i 
 
 ttcularly hated by the King's party. He was now in their 
 hands, and, as they had formerly proclaimed him a traitor, 
 they now without scruple put him to death as such. This 
 cruel deed occasioned other violences, by way of retaliation, 
 which, in turn, led to fresh acts of bloodshed. All natural 
 ties were forgotten in the distinction of Kingsmen and Queens- 
 men; and, as neither party gave quarter to their opponents, 
 the civil war assumed a most horrible aspect. Fathers, and 
 sons, and brothers, took opposite sides, and fought against each 
 other. The very children of the towns and villages formed 
 themselves into bands for King James or Queen Mary, and 
 fought inveterately with stones, sticks, and knives. 
 
 In the midst of this confusion, each party called a parlia- 
 ment, which was attended only by the lords of their own side. 
 The Queen's Parliament met at Edinburgh, under protection 
 of the castle, and its governor Kirkaldy. The King's faction 
 had a much more numerous assembly, assuming the same 
 denomination, at Stirling, where they produced the young King, 
 to give authority to their proceedings. The boy, with natural 
 childishness, taking notice of a rent in the carpet which 
 covered the table at which the clerks sat, observed, "there 
 was a hole in the Parliament." These words were remarked 
 afterwards, as if they had contained a sort of prophecy of the 
 following singular event : 
 
 Kirkaldy devised an enterprise, by which, if successful, he 
 would have put a complete stop to the proceedings of the 
 King's Parliament, nay, to the civil war itself. He sent for 
 Buccleuch and Fairniehirst, already noticed as zealous partisans 
 of Mary, desiring them to bring a large party of their best horse- 
 men, and joined with them the Lord Claud Hamilton, with a 
 detachment of infantry. The whole were guided by a man of 
 the name of Bell, who knew the town of Stirling, being a native 
 of that place. On the 4th of September 1571 he introduced 
 the party, consisting of about five hundred men, into the 
 middle of the town, at four in the morning, without even a dog 
 barking at them. They then raised the alarm, crying out, 
 " God and the Queen ! think on the Archbishop of Saint 
 Andrews ! all is our own ! " According to the directions they 
 had received, they sent parties to the different houses of which 
 the King's Lords had taken possession, and made them prisoner 
 without resistance, except on the part of Morton, whose obsti
 
 1570-2 CIVIL WARS 327 
 
 nate valour obliged them to set fire to his lodgings. He then 
 reluctantly surrendered himself to Buccleuch, who was his near 
 connection. But his resistance had gained some time, and the 
 assailants had scattered themselves in quest of plunder. At 
 this moment, Mar brought a party of musketeers out of the 
 castle, and placing them behind the walls of a house which he 
 had commenced building on the castle-hill, he opened a heavy 
 and unexpected fire upon the Queensmen. These being already 
 in disorder, were struck with panic in the moment of victory, 
 and began to fly. The scene was now completely changed, 
 and they who had been triumphant the moment before, were 
 glad to surrender to their own captives. Lennox the Regent 
 had been mounted behind Spens of Wormeston, who had made 
 him captive. He was a particular object of vengeance to the 
 Hamiltons, who longed to requite the death of the Archbishop 
 of St. Andrews. He was killed, as was believed, by Lord 
 Claud Hamilton's orders, and Spens, who most honourably 
 endeavoured to protect his prisoner, was slain at the same 
 time. The Queen's party retreated out of Stirling without 
 much loss, for the Borderers carried off all the horses, upon 
 which the opposite party might have followed them. Kirkaldy 
 received the news of the Regent's death with much dissatisfac- 
 tion, abusing those who commanded the party as disorderly 
 beasts, who neither knew how to gain a victory, nor how to 
 use it. Had he placed himself at the head of the detachment, 
 as he had earnestly desired to do, it is probable that the Raid 
 of Stirling might have ended the war. As it fell out, the 
 quarrel was only embittered, if possible, by the death of Lennox. 
 
 The Earl of Mar was named Regent on the King's side. 
 He was a man of fair and moderate views, and so honourably 
 desirous of restoring the blessing of peace to his country, that the 
 impossibility of attaining his object is said to have shortened 
 his life. He died 29th October 1572, having been Regent 
 little more than one year. 
 
 The Earl of Morton was next made Regent. We have seen 
 that this nobleman, however respectable for courage and talents, 
 was nevertheless of a fierce, treacherous, and cruel disposition. 
 He had been concerned in Rizzio's murder, and was at least 
 acquainted with that of Darnley. It was to be expected that 
 he would continue the war with the same ferocious cruelty by 
 which it had been distinguished, instead of labouring, like Mar,
 
 328 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXI I 
 
 to diminish its violence. This fell out accordingly. Each 
 party continued to execute their prisoners ; and as skirmishes 
 were daily fought, the number of persons who fell by the 
 sword, or died upon the gibbet, was fearfully great. From the 
 family name of Morton, these were called the Douglases' wars. 
 
 After these hostilities had existed for about five years, the 
 Duke of Chatelherault, and the Earl of Huntly, the two prin- 
 cipal nobles who had supported the Queen's cause, submitted 
 themselves to the King's authority, and to the sway of the 
 Regent Kirkaldy of Grange, assisted by the counsels of Mait- 
 land of Lethington, continued to maintain the castle of Edin- 
 burgh against Morton. But Queen Elizabeth, who became 
 now desirous of ending the Scottish dissensions, sent Sir 
 William Drury from Berwick with a considerable number [1500] 
 of regular forces, and, what was still more needful, a large train 
 of artillery, which formed a close siege around the castle of 
 Edinburgh. The garrison were, however, much more distressed 
 for provisions than by the shot of the English batteries. It 
 was not till after a valiant defence, in the course of which one 
 of the springs which supplied the fortress with water was dried 
 up, and the other became choked with ruins, that the gallant 
 Kirkaldy was compelled to capitulate. 
 
 After a siege of thirty-three days he surrendered to the 
 English general, who promised that his mistress should inter- 
 cede with the Regent for favourable treatment to the governor 
 and his adherents. This might the rather have been expected, 
 because Morton and Kirkaldy had been at one time great 
 friends. But the Regent was earnest in demanding the life of 
 his valorous opponent ; and Elizabeth, with little regard to 
 her general's honour or her own, abandoned the prisoners to 
 Morton's vengeance. Kirkaldy and his brother were publicly 
 executed, to the great regret even of many of the Kingps party 
 themselves. Maitland of Lethington, more famed for talents 
 than integrity, despaired of obtaining mercy where none had 
 been extended to Kirkaldy, and put a period to his existence 
 by taking poison. Thus ended the civil wars of Queen Mary's 
 reign, with the death of the bravest soldier, and of the ablest 
 statesman, in Scotland ; for such were Kirkaldy and Maitland. 
 
 From the time of the surrender of Edinburgh Castle, 29th 
 May 1573, the Regent Morton was in complete possession of 
 the supreme power in Scotland. As Queen Elizabeth had
 
 1573 REGENCY OF MORTON 329 
 
 been his constant friend during the civil wars, he paid devoted 
 attention to her wishes when he became the undisputed ruler 
 of the kingdom. 
 
 Morton even went so far as to yield up to the justice, or 
 the revenge, of the English Queen, that unfortunate Earl of 
 Northumberland, who, as I formerly mentioned, had raised a 
 rebellion in England, and flying into Scotland, had been 1669 
 confined by the Regent Murray in Lochleven Castle. 
 The surrender of this unfortunate nobleman to England was 
 a great stain, not only on the character of Morton, but on that 
 of Scotland in general, which had hitherto been accounted a 
 safe and hospitable place of refuge for those whom misfortune 
 or political faction had exiled from their own country. It was 
 the more particularly noticed, because when Morton himself 
 had been forced to fly to England, on account of his share in 
 Rizzio's murder, he had been courteously received and protected 
 by the unhappy nobleman whom he had now delivered up to 
 his fate. It was an additional and aggravating circumstance, 
 that it was a Douglas who betrayed a Percy ; and when the 
 annals of their ancestors were considered, it was found that 
 while they presented many acts of open hostility, many in- 
 stances of close and firm alliance, they never till now had 
 afforded an example of any act of treachery exercised by the 
 one family against the other. To complete the infamy of the 
 transaction, a sum of money was paid to the Regent on this 
 occasion, which he divided with Douglas of Lochleven. Nor- 
 thumberland was beheaded at York, 1572. 
 
 In other respects, Scotland derived great advantage from 
 the peace with England, as some degree of repose was highly 
 necessary to this distracted country. The peace now made 
 continued, with little interruption, for thirty years and upwards. 
 
 On one occasion, however, a smart action took place betwixt 
 the Scots and English, which, though of little consequence, I 
 may here tell you of, chiefly because it was the last considerable 
 skirmish with the exception of a deed of bold daring, of 
 which I shall speak by and by which the two nations had, or, 
 it is to be hoped, ever will have, with each other. 
 
 It was the course adopted for preserving peace upon the 
 Border, that the wardens on each side used to meet on days 
 appointed, and deliver up to each other the malefactors who 
 had committed aggressions upon either country, or else make
 
 330 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXII 
 
 pecuniary reparation for the trespasses which they had done. 
 On the 7th July 1575, Carmichael, as warden for the Scottish 
 Middle Marches, met Sir John Foster, the English officer on 
 the opposite frontier, each being, as usual, accompanied by the 
 guards belonging to their office, as well as by the armed clans 
 inhabiting their jurisdiction. Foster was attended by the men 
 of Tynedale, in greater numbers than those of the Scottish 
 Borderers, all well armed with jack and spear, as well as bows 
 and arrows. The meeting was at first peaceful. The wardens 
 commenced their usual business of settling delinquencies ; and 
 their attendants began to traffic with each other, and to engage 
 in sports and gaming. For, notwithstanding their habitual 
 incursions, a sort of acquaintance was always kept up between 
 the Borderers on both sides, like that which takes place betwixt 
 the outposts of two contending armies. 
 
 During this mutual friendly intercourse, a dispute arose 
 between the two wardens, Carmichael desiring delivery of an 
 English depredator, for whom Foster, on the other hand, re- 
 fused to be responsible. They both arose from their seats as 
 the debate grew warm, and Sir John Foster told Carmichael, 
 contemptuously, he ought to match himself with his equals. 
 The English Borderers immediately raised their war-cry of 
 " To it, Tynedale ! " and without further ceremony shot a 
 flight of arrows among the Scots, who, few in number, and 
 surprised, were with difficulty able to keep their ground. A 
 band of the citizens of Jedburgh arrived just in time to support 
 their countrymen, and turn the fate of the day ; for most of 
 them having firearms, the old English long-bow no more pos- 
 sessed its ancient superiority. After a smart action, the Eng- 
 lish were driven from the field ; Sir John Foster, with many 
 of the English gentlemen, being made prisoners, were sent 
 to the Regent Morton to be at his disposal. Sir George 
 Heron of Chipchase, and other persons of condition, were 
 slain on the English side. The Scots lost but one gentleman 
 of name. 
 
 Morton, afraid of Queen Elizabeth's displeasure, though the 
 offence had been given by the English, treated the prisoners 
 with distinction, and dismissed them, not only without ransom, 
 but with presents of falcons, and other tokens of respect. " Are 
 you not well treated ?" said a Scotsman to one of these liberated 
 prisoners, " since we give you live hawks for dead herons V
 
 1574-5 REGENCY OF MORTON 331 
 
 This skirmish, called the Kaid of the Kedswair, took place 
 on the mountainous ridge of the Carter. It produced no in- 
 terruption of concord between the two countries, being passed 
 over as a casual affray. Scotland, therefore, enjoyed the bless- 
 ings of peace and tranquillity during the greater part of Mor- 
 ton's regency. 
 
 But the advantages which the kingdom derived from peace, 
 were in some measure destroyed by the corrupt and oppressive 
 government of the Regent, who turned his thoughts almost 
 entirely to amassing treasure, by every means in his power. 
 The extensive property, which formerly belonged to the Eo- 
 man Catholic Church, was a mine out of which Morton and 
 the other great nobles contrived to work for themselves a 
 great deal of wealth. This they did chiefly by dealing with 
 those who were placed in the room of the abbots and priors as 
 commendators, by which word the Scots distinguished a lay- 
 man who obtained possession of an ecclesiastical benefice. To 
 these commendators the nobles applied, and, by fair means or 
 force, compelled them to make over and transfer to them the 
 property of the abbacies, or at least to grant it to them in long 
 leases for a trifling rent. That you may understand how this 
 sort of business was managed, I will give you a curious instance 
 of it : 
 
 In August 1570 Allan Stewart, commendator of the ab- 
 bacy of Crossraguel, in Ayrshire, was prevailed on to visit the 
 Earl of Cassilis, who conveyed him, partly against his will, to 
 a lonely tcwer, which overhangs the sea, called the Black 
 Vault of Denure, the ruins of which are yet visible. He was 
 treated for some time kindly ; but as his arms and servants 
 were removed from him, he soon saw reason to consider him- 
 self less as a friendly guest than as a prisoner, to whom some 
 foul play was intended. At length the Earl conveyed his 
 guest into a private chamber, in which there was no furniture 
 of any kind excepting a huge clumsy iron grate or gridiron, 
 beneath which was a fire of charcoal. "And now, my lord 
 abbot," said the Earl of Cassilis, " will you be pleased to sign 
 these deeds ?" And so saying, he laid before him leases and 
 other papers, transferring the whole lands of the abbacy of 
 Crossraguel to the Earl himself. The commendator refused to 
 yield up the property or to subscribe the deeds. A party of 
 ruffians then entered, and seizing the unhappy man, stripped
 
 332 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXII 
 
 him of his clothes, and forcibly stretched him on the iron bars, 
 where he lay, scorched by the fire beneath, while they basted 
 him with oil, as a cook bastes the joint of meat which she 
 roasts upon a spit. The agony of such torture was not to 
 be endured. The poor man cried pitifully, begging they 
 would put him to instant death, rather than subject him to 
 this lingering misery, and offered his purse, with the money it 
 contained, to any who would in mercy shoot him through the 
 head. At length he was obliged to promise to subscribe what- 
 ever the Earl wished, rather than endure the excessive torture 
 any longer. The letters and leases being then presented to 
 him, he signed them with his half-roasted hand, while the Earl 
 all the while exclaimed, with the most impudent hypocrisy, 
 " Benedicite ! you are the most obstinate man I ever saw, to 
 oblige me to use you thus : I iiever thought to have treated 
 any one as your stubbornness has made me treat you." The 
 commendator was afterwards delivered by a party commanded 
 by Hamilton of Bargany, who attacked the Black Vault of 
 Denure for the purpose of his liberation. But the wild, savage, 
 and ferocious conduct of the Earl shows in what manner the 
 nobles obtained grants of the church lands from those who had 
 possession of them for the time. 
 
 The Earl of Morton, however, set the example of another 
 and less violent mode of appropriating Church revenues to his 
 own purposes. This was by reviving the order of bishops, 
 which had been discarded from the Presbyterian form of Church 
 government. For example, on the execution of the Arch- 
 bishop of St. Andrews, he caused Douglas, Rector of St. 
 Andrews, to be made archbishop in his place ; but then he 
 allowed this nominal prelate only a small pension out of the 
 large revenues of the bishopric, and retained possession of all 
 the rest of the income for his own advantage, though the rents 
 were levied in the bishop's name. 
 
 These and other innovations gave great distress to John 
 Knox, the bold and iuflexible father of the Scottish Reforma- 
 tion. He saw with pain that the Protestant nobles were likely 
 to diminish even the scanty subsistence which had hitherto 
 been supplied to the Scottish clergy, out of the ample funds 
 belonging originally to the Church of Rome. He was also 
 jealous of the republican equality of the clergy, when he be- 
 held the Church of Scotland innovated upon by this new
 
 15757 REGENCY OF MORTON 333 
 
 introduction of bishops, though with limited incomes and di- 
 minished power. For these and other reasons he had more 
 than once bitterly rebuked the Regent Morton; 
 but when this remarkable man died, the Regent, 
 who attended his funeral, pronounced over his coffin 
 an eulogium never to be forgotten. "There lies he," said 
 Morton, " who never feared the face of man." 
 
 In the State as in the Church, the Regent displayed symp- 
 toms of a vindictive, avaricious, and corrupt disposition. Al- 
 though the civil wars were ended, he resolved to avenge upon 
 the Hamiltons the continued support which that powerful 
 family had given to the Queen's party, and the obstacles which 
 they had thrown in the way of his own exaltation. He pro- 
 ceeded to act against them as public enemies, drove them out 
 of Scotland, and seized upon their estates. The Earl of Arran, 
 eldest brother of the family, to whom the estates actually be- 
 longed, was insane, and in a state of confinement ; but this did 
 not prevent Morton from declaring that the earldom and the 
 lands belonging to it were forfeited, an abuse of law which 
 scandalised all honest men. 
 
 It was not only by confiscation that Morton endeavoured to 
 amass wealth. He took money for the offices which he had it 
 in his power to bestow. Even in administering justice, his 
 hands were not pure from bribes ; to dispense the behests of 
 law from favour or love of gain is one of the greatest crimes 
 of which a public man can be guilty. 
 
 It is told of Morton, in a history of the family of Somer- 
 ville, that a nobleman of that house having a great and import- 
 ant cause to be decided, in which the influence of the Regent 
 might assuredly occasion it to be determined as he himself 
 should think fit, he followed, by the advice of an ancient and 
 experienced acquaintance of the Regent, the following singular 
 course : Lord Somerville waited on the Earl of Morton, and 
 recommended his case to his favourable opinion, a kind of 
 personal solicitation which was then much in use. Having 
 spoken with the Regent for a short time, he turned to depart, 
 and, opening his purse, as if to take out some money to give 
 to the ushers and attendants, as was the custom upon such oc- 
 casions, he left the purse on the table as though he had forgot 
 it. Morton called after him, " My lord, your purse you have 
 forgotten your purse !" but Lord Somerville hastened away
 
 334 TALKS OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXII 
 
 without turning back. He heard nothing more of the purse, 
 
 which he had taken care should be pretty full of 
 
 18t i877? ' 6ld ' but Lord Morton that day decided the cause in 
 
 his favour. 
 
 Instances of such base profligacy by degrees alienated from 
 Morton even the affections of his best friends, and his govern- 
 ment at length became so unpopular, that a universal wish was 
 entertained that the King would put an end to the Regency 
 by taking the government into his own hands. 
 
 These opinions prevailed so generally, that Morton, on the 
 12th March 1578, resigned his office of Regent, and retired 
 to reside in his castle of Dalkeith, as a private man, leaving 
 the affairs of state to be administered by a council of nobles, 
 twelve in number. But accustomed to be at the head of the 
 government, he could not long remain inactive. He burst 
 from his seclusion in the gloomy fortress, which the people 
 called the Lion's Den, and using a mixture of craft and force, 
 expelled the new counsellors; and once more, after the old 
 Douglas's fashion, obtained the supreme management of public 
 affairs. But the sovereign was no longer a child. He was now 
 beginning to think and act for himself; and it is necessary you 
 should know something of his character. 
 
 James VI. was but an infant when he was placed on the 
 throne of his mother. He was now only a boy of fourteen, 
 very good-natured, and with as much learning as two excellent 
 schoolmasters could cram him with. In fact, he had more 
 learning than wisdom ; and yet, in the course of his future life, 
 it did not appear that he was without good sense so much, as 
 that he was destitute of the power to form manly purposes, and 
 the firmness necessary to maintain them. A certain childish- 
 ness and meanness of mind rendered his good sense useless, 
 and his learning ridiculous. Even from his infancy he was 
 passionately addicted to favourites, and already, in his thirteenth 
 or fourteenth year, there were two persons so high in his good 
 graces that they could bring him to do anything they pleased 
 
 The first was Esme Stewart of Aubigny, a nephew of the 
 late Earl of Lennox, and his heir. The King not only re- 
 stored this young man to the honours of his family, but created 
 him Duke of Lennox, and raised him with too prodigal gene- 
 rosity to a high situation in the state. There was nothing in 
 the character of this favourite either to deserve such extreme
 
 1577-9 TRIAL OF MORTON 335 
 
 preferment or to make him unworthy of it. He was a gallant 
 young gentleman, who was deeply grateful to the King for his 
 bounty, and appears to have been disposed to enjoy it without 
 injuring any one. 
 
 Very different was the character of the other favourite of 
 James VI. This was Captain James Stewart, a second son of 
 the family of Ochiltree. He was an unprincipled, abandoned 
 man, without any wisdom except cunning, and only distin- 
 guished by the audacity of his ambition and the boldness of his 
 character. 
 
 The counsels of these two favourites increased the King's 
 natural desire to put an end to the sway of Morton, and Stewart 
 resolved that the pretext for his removal should also be one 
 which should bring him to the block. The grounds of accusa- 
 tion were artfully chosen. The Earl of Morton, when he 
 resigned the regency, had obtained a pardon under the great 
 seal for all crimes and offences which he had or might have 
 committed against the King ; but there was no mention, in 
 that pardon, of the murder of Henry Darnley, the King's 
 father ; and in counselling, if not in committing that murder, 
 the Earl of Morton had certainly participated. The favourite 
 Stewart took the office of accuser upon himself; and entering 
 the King's chamber suddenly when the Privy Council were 
 assembled, he dropped on his knees before James, and accused 
 the Earl of Morton of having been concerned in the murder 
 of the King's father. To this Morton, with a haughty smile, 
 replied, that he had prosecuted the perpetrators of that offence 
 too severely to make it probable that he himself was one of 
 them. All he demanded was a fair inquiry. 
 
 Upon this public accusation, the Earl, so lately the most 
 powerful man in Scotland, was made prisoner, and appointed 
 to abide a trial. The friends he had left earnestly exhorted 
 him to fly. His nephew, the Earl of Angus, offered to raise 
 his men, and protect him by force. Morton refused both offers, 
 alleging he would wait the event of a fair investigation. The 
 Queen of England interfered in Morton's behalf with such 
 partial eagerness, as perhaps prejudiced James still more against 
 the prisoner, whom he was led to believe to be more attached 
 to Elizabeth's service than to his own. 
 
 Meantime the accuser, Stewart, was promoted to the earldom 
 of Arran, vacant by the forfeiture of the Hamiltons. Morton
 
 336 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXII 
 
 who had no knowledge of this preferment, was astonished when 
 he heard that the charge ran against him in the uame of James, 
 Earl of Arrau. When it was explained to him who it was that 
 now enjoyed the title, he observed, " Is it even so? then I know 
 what I have to expect." It was supposed that he recollected 
 an old prophecy, which foretold " that the Bloody Heart " (the 
 cognisance of the Douglases) "should fall by the mouth of 
 Arran;" and it was conjectured that the fear of some one of 
 the Hamiltons accomplishing that prophecy had made him the 
 more actively violent in destroying that family. If so, his own 
 tyrannical oppression only opened the way for the creation of an 
 Arran different from those whom he had thought of. 
 
 The trial of Morton appears to have been conducted with 
 no attention to the rules of impartial justice ; for the servants 
 of the accused person were apprehended, and put to the torture, 
 in order to extort from them confessions which might be fatal 
 to their master. Morton protested against two or three persons 
 who were placed upon his jury, as being his mortal enemies ; 
 but they were nevertheless retained. They brought in a 
 verdict, finding that he was guilty, art and part, of the murder 
 of Henry Darnley. A man is said to be art and part of a 
 crime when he contrives the manner of the deed, and concurs 
 with and encourages those who commit the crime, although 
 he does not put his own hand to the actual execution of it. 
 Morton heard the verdict with indignation, and struck his 
 staff against the ground as he repeated the words, " Art and 
 part ! art and part ! God knoweth the contrary." On the 
 morning after his sentence he awoke from a profound sleep 
 " On former nights," he said, " I used to lie awake, thinking 
 how I might defend myself; but now my mind is relieved of 
 its burden." Being conjured by the clergyman who attended 
 him to confess all he knew of Henry Darnley's murder, he told 
 them, as we have noticed elsewhere, that a proposal had been 
 made to him by Bothwell to be accessory to the deed, but that 
 he had refused to assent to it without an order under the 
 Queen's hand, which Bothwell promised to procure, but could 
 not, or at least did not, do so. Morton admitted that he had 
 kept the secret, not knowing, he said, to whom to discover it : 
 for if he had told it Queen Mary, she was herself one of the 
 conspirators ; if to Darnley, he was of a disposition so fickle 
 that the Queen would work it out of him, and then he, Morton,
 
 1579-81 EXECUTION OF MORTON 337 
 
 was equally undone. He also admitted, that he knew that 
 his friend, dependent, and kinsman, Archibald Douglas, was 
 present at the murder, whom, notwithstanding, he never 
 brought to justice, but, on the contrary, continued to favour. 
 Upon the whole, he seems to allow, that he suffered justly for 
 concealing the crime, though he denied having given counsel or 
 assistance to its actual execution. " But it is all the same," he 
 said ; " I should have had the same doom, whether I were as 
 innocent as St. Stephen, or as guilty as Judas." 
 
 As they were about to lead the Earl to execution, Captain 
 Stewart, his accuser, now Earl of Arran, came to urge his sub- 
 scribing a paper containing the purport of his confession. 
 Morton replied, " I pray you trouble me not ; I am now to 
 prepare for death, and canuot write in the state in which I 
 am." Arran then desired to be reconciled to him, pretending 
 he had only acted from public and conscientious motives. " It 
 is no time to count quarrels now;" said the Earl "I forgive 
 you and all others." 
 
 This celebrated man died by a machine called the Maiden, 
 which he himself had introduced into Scotland from Halifax, 
 in Yorkshire. The criminal who suffered by this 
 engine, was adjusted upon planks, in a prostrate state, 2 i^ e 
 his neck being placed beneath a sharp axe, heavily 
 loaded with lead, which was suspended by a rope brought over 
 a pulley. When the signal was given, the rope was cast loose, 
 and the axe, descending on the neck of the condemned person, 
 severed, of course, the head from the body. Morton submitted 
 to his fate with the most Christian fortitude ; and in him died 
 the last of those terrible Douglases, whose talents and 
 courage rendered them the pride of their country, but whose 
 ambition was often its scourge. No one could tell what became 
 of the treasures he had amassed, and for the sake of which he 
 sacrificed his popularity as a liberal, and his conscience as an 
 honest, man. He was, or seemed to be, so poor, that when 
 going to the scaffold, he borrowed money from a friend, that 
 he might bestow a parting alms upon the mendicants who 
 solicited his charity. Some have thought that his mass of 
 wealth lies still concealed among the secret vaults of his castle 
 of Dalkeith, now belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch. But 
 Humo of Godscroft, who writes the history of the Douglas 
 family, says th.at large sums were expended by the Earl of 
 
 22
 
 338 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXII 
 
 Angus, the nephew of Morton, in maintaining a number of 
 exiles, who, like the Earl himself, were banished from Scotland, 
 and at length, when paying away some money for this purpose, 
 he was heard to say, " The last of it is now gone, and I never 
 looked that it should have done so much good." This Gods- 
 croft believed to allude to the final expenditure of the treasures 
 of the Regent Morton. 
 
 After the death of Morton, his faults and crimes were in a 
 great measure forgotten, when it was observed that Arran 
 (that is, Captain Stewart) possessed all the late Regent's vices 
 of corruption and oppression, without his wisdom or his talents. 
 Lennox, the King's other favourite, was also unpopular, chiefly 
 because he was unacceptable to the clergy, who, although he 
 avowedly professed the Protestant religion, were jealous of his 
 retaining an attachment to the Catholic faith. This suspicion 
 arose from his having been educated in France. They publicly 
 preached against him as " a great Champion called his Grace, 
 who, if he continued to oppose himself to religion, should have 
 little grace in the end." 
 
 A plot was formed among the discontented nobles to re- 
 move the King's favourites from the court ; and this was to 
 be accomplished by forcibly seizing on the person of the King 
 himself, which, during the minority of the prince, was the 
 ordinary mode of changing an administration in the kingdom of 
 Scotland. 
 
 On the 23d August 1582 the Earl of Gowrie invited the 
 King to his castle at Ruthven, under pretext of hunting ; he 
 was joined by the Earl of Mar, Lord Lindsay, the Tutor of 
 Glamis, and other noblemen, chiefly such as had been friendly 
 to the Regent Morton, and who were, like him, attached to 
 Queen Elizabeth's faction. When the King saw so many 
 persons gather round him whom he knew to be of one way of 
 thinking, and that hostile to his present measures, he became 
 apprehensive of their intentions, and expressed himself desirous 
 of leaving the castle. 
 
 The nobles gave him to understand that he would not be 
 permitted to do so ; and when James rose and went towards 
 the door of the apartment, the Tutor of Glamis, a rude stern 
 man, placed his back against it, and compelled him to return. 
 Affronted at this act of personal restraint and violence, the 
 King burst into tears. " Let him weep on," said the Tutor
 
 1581-4 RAID OF KUTHVEN 339 
 
 of Glamis fiercely; "better that bairns (children) weep, than 
 bearded men." These words sank deep into the King's heart, 
 nor did he ever forget or forgive them. 
 
 The insurgent lords took possession of the government, and 
 banished the Duke of Lennox to France, where he died broken- 
 hearted at the fall of his fortunes. James afterwards recalled 
 his son to Scotland, and invested him with his father's fortune 
 and dignities. Arran, the King's much less worthy favourite, 
 was thrown into prison, and closely guarded. The King him- 
 self, reduced to a state of captivity, like his grandfather, James 
 V., when in the hands of the Douglases, temporised, and 
 watched an opportunity of escape. His guards consisted of a 
 hundred gentlemen, and their commander, Colonel Stewart, a 
 relation of the disgraced and imprisoned Arran, was easily en- 
 gaged to do what the King wished. 
 
 James, with the purpose of recovering his freedom, made a 
 visit to St. Andrews, and, when there, affected 
 some curiosity to see the castle. But no sooner had 25 *5 8 ^" ne 
 he entered it than he caused the gates to be shut, and 
 excluded from his presence the nobles who had been accessary 
 to what was called the Raid of Ruthveu. 
 
 The Earl of Gowrie and his accomplices, being thus thrust 
 out of office, and deprived of the custody of the King's person, 
 united in a fresh plot for regaining the power they had lost, 
 by a new insurrection. In this, however, they were unsuccess- 
 ful. The King advanced against them with considerable forces ; 
 Gowrie was made prisoner, tried and executed at Stirling, 4th 
 May 1584. Angus and the other insurgents fled to England, 
 the ordinary refuge of Scottish exiles. The execution of Gowrie 
 gave rise long afterwards to that extraordinary event in Scottish 
 history called the Gowrie Conspiracy, of which I shall give 
 you an account by and by. 
 
 The upstart Earl of Arran was now restored to power, and 
 indeed raised higher than ever, by that indiscriminate affection 
 which on this and other occasions induced James to heap wealth 
 and rank without bounds upon his favourites. This worthless 
 minister governed everything at court and throughout the king- 
 dom ; and, though ignorant as well as venal and profligate, he 
 was raised to the dignity of Lord Chancellor, the highest law- 
 office in the state, and that in which sagacity, learning, and 
 integrity were chiefly required.
 
 340 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXII 
 
 One day when the favourite was bustling into the Court of 
 Justice, at the head of his numerous retinue, an old man, rather 
 meanly dressed, chanced to stand in his way. As Arran pushed 
 rudely past hiin, the man stopped him, and said, "Look at 
 me, my lord, I am Oliver Sinclair ! " Oliver Sinclair, you 
 remember, was the favourite of James V., and had exercised 
 during his reign as absolute a sway in Scotland as Arrau now 
 enjoyed under his grandson, James VI. In presenting himself 
 before the present favourite in his neglected condition, he gave 
 Arran an example of the changeful character of court favour. 
 The lesson was a striking one ; but Arran did not profit by it. 
 
 The favourite's government became so utterly intolerable 
 that, in the year 1585, the banished lords found a welcome 
 reception in Scotland, and marching to Stirling at the head of 
 ten thousand men, compelled James to receive them into his 
 counsels; and, by using their victory with moderation, were 
 enabled to maintain the power which they had thus gained. 
 Arran, stripped of his earldom and ill-gotten gains, and banished 
 from the court, was fain to live privately and miserably among 
 the wilds of the north-west of Ayrshire, afraid of the vengeance 
 of his numerous enemies. 
 
 The fate which he apprehended from their enmity befell him 
 at length; for, in 1596, seeing, or thinking he saw, some 
 chance of regaining the Bang's favour, and listening, as is said, 
 to the words of some idle soothsayer, who pretended that his 
 head was about to be raised higher than ever, Stewart (for he 
 was an earl no longer) ventured into the southern country of 
 Dumfries. Here he received a hint to take care of his safety, 
 since he was now in the neighbourhood of the Douglases, 
 whose great leader, the Earl of Morton, he had been the means 
 of destroying ; and in particular, he was advised to beware of 
 James Douglas of Torthorwald, the Earl's near kinsman [nephew]. 
 Stewart replied haughtily, he would not go out of his road for 
 him or all of the name of Douglas. This was reported to 
 Torthorwald, who, considering the expression as a defiance, 
 immediately mounted, with three servants, and pursued the 
 disgraced favourite. When they overtook him, they thrust a 
 spear through his body, and killed him l on the spot without 
 
 1 Sir James Doaglas was killed on the High Street of Edinburgh, 1608. 
 by Captain William SteM-art, a nephew of the chancellor, who ran him 
 through the body to revenge his uncle's death.
 
 1585 MARY'S CAPTIVITY 341 
 
 resistance. His head was cut off, placed on the point of a lance, 
 and exposed from the battlements of the tower of Torthorwald ; 
 and thus, in some sense, the soothsayer's prophecy was made 
 good, as his head was raised higher than before, though not in 
 the way he had been made to hope. His body was left for 
 several days on the place where he was killed, and was mangled 
 by dogs and swine. So ended this worthless minion, by a 
 death at once bloody and obscure. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 Severity of Mary's Captivity Sabington's Conspiracy Trial of Mary 
 Her Sentence and Execution Reign of James VL Feuds of the 
 Nobles, and Bloodthirsty Spirit of the Times Kinmont Willie and 
 Buccleuch Gowrie Conspiracy James's Accession to the Throne of 
 England 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. England: Elizabeth. France: 
 Henry III., Henry IV. 
 
 15861603 
 
 I DARESAY you are wondering all this time what became of 
 Queen Mary. We left her, you know, in the hands of Queen 
 Elizabeth, who had refused to decide anything on the question of 
 her guilt or innocence. This was in 1568-69 ; and undoubtedly, 
 by every rule of law or justice, Mary ought then to have been 
 set at liberty. She had been accused of matters which Elizabeth 
 herself had admitted were not brought home to her by proof, 
 and of which, even if they had been proved, the Queen of Eng- 
 land had no right to take cognisance. Nevertheless, Elizabeth 
 continued to treat Mary as guilty, though she declined to pro- 
 nounce her so, and to use her as her subject, though she was an 
 independent sovereign, who had chosen England for a retreat, 
 in the hope of experiencing that hospitable protection which 
 would have been given to the meanest Scottish subject, who, 
 flying from the laws of his own country, sought refuge in the 
 sister kingdom. When you read English history, you will see 
 that Elizabeth was a great and glorious Queen, and well deserved 
 the title of the Mother of her country ; but her conduct towards
 
 342 TALKS OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXIII 
 
 Queen Mary casts a deep shade over her virtues, and leads us 
 to reflect what poor frail creatures even the wisest of mortals 
 are, and of what imperfect materials that which we call human 
 virtue is found to consist. 
 
 Always demanding her liberty, and always having her demand 
 evaded or refused, Mary was transported from castle to castle, 1 
 and placed under the charge of various keepers, who incurred 
 Elizabeth's most severe resentment when they manifested any 
 of that attention to soften the rigours of the poor Queen's 
 captivity, which mere courtesy, and compassion for fallen great- 
 ness, sometimes prompted. The very furniture and accommo- 
 dations of her apartments were miserably neglected, and the 
 expenses of her household were supplied as grudgingly as if she 
 had been an unwelcome guest, who could depart at pleasure, 
 and whom, therefore, the entertainer endeavours to get rid of 
 by the coldness and discomfort of the reception afforded. It 
 was, upon one occasion, with difficulty that the Queen Dowager 
 of France, and actual Queen of Scotland, obtained the accommo- 
 dation of a down bed, which a complaint in her limbs, the con- 
 sequence of damp and confinement, rendered a matter of needful 
 accommodation rather than of luxury. When she was permitted 
 to take exercise, she was always strongly guarded, as if she had 
 been a criminal ; and if any one offered her a compliment, or 
 token of respect, or any word of comfort, Queen Elizabeth, who 
 had her spies everywhere, was sure to reproach those who were 
 Mary's guardians for the time, with great neglect of their duty, 
 in permitting such intercourse. 
 
 During this severe captivity on the one part, and the great- 
 est anxiety, doubt, and jealousy on the other, the two Queens 
 still kept up a sort of correspondence. In the commencement 
 of this intercourse, Mary endeavoured, by the force of argument, 
 by the seductions of flattery, and by appeals to the feelings of 
 humanity, to soften towards her the heart of Elizabeth. She 
 tried also to bribe her rival into a more humane conduct towards 
 
 1 On her own solicitations, for the recovery of health, Mary was allowed 
 visits to Buxton ; but all the while a prisoner ; the waters there were of 
 little avail when air, exercise, and amusement were denied. Her forced 
 removals were, in 1568, from Carlisle to Bolton, 1569, to Tutbury, Wing- 
 field, Tutbury, Ashby-de-la-Zouche, Coventry, 1570, to Tutbury, Chats- 
 worth, Sheffield, 1577, to Chatsworth, 1578, to Sheffield, 1584, to 
 Wingfield, 1585, to Tuthnry, Chartley, Tixhall, Chartley, 1586 (25th 
 September), to Fotheringay.
 
 1586 MARY'S CAPTIVITY 343 
 
 her, by offering to surrender her crown and reside abroad if 
 she could but be restored to her personal freedom. But Eliza- 
 beth had injured the Queen of Scotland too deeply to venture 
 the consequences of her resentment, and thought herself, perhaps, 
 compelled to continue the course she had commenced, from the 
 fear that, once at liberty, Mary might have pursued measures 
 of revenge, and that she herself would find it impossible to 
 devise any mode of binding the Scottish Queen to perform, 
 when at large, such articles as she might consent to when in 
 bondage. 
 
 Despairing at length of making any favourable impression, 
 upon Elizabeth, Mary, with more wit than prudence, used her 
 means of communicating with the Queen of England to irritate 
 and provoke her ; yielding to the not unnatural, though certainly 
 the rash and impolitic purpose, of retaliating some part of the 
 pain to which she was herself subjected upon the person whom 
 she justly considered as the authoress of her calamities. 
 
 Being for a long time under the charge of the Earl of 
 Shrewsbury, whose lady was a woman of a shrewish disposition, 
 Mary used to report to Elizabeth that the countess had called 
 her old and ugly ; had said she was grown as crooked in her 
 temper as in her body, with many other scandalous and abusive 
 expressions, which must have given exquisite pain to any 
 woman, and more especially to a Queen so proud as Elizabeth, 
 and desirous, even in old age, of being still esteemed beautiful. 
 Unquestionably these reproaches added poignancy to the 
 hatred with which the English sovereign regarded Queen 
 Mary. 
 
 But, besides these female reasons for detesting her prisoner, 
 Elizabeth had cause to regard the Queen of Scots with fear 
 as well as envy and hatred. The Catholic party in England 
 were still very strong, and they considered the claim of Mary 
 to the throne of England as descended from the Princess Mar- 
 garet, daughter of Henry VII., to be preferable to that of the 
 existing Queen, who was, in their judgment, illegitimate, as 
 being the heir of an illegal marriage betwixt Henry VIII. and 
 Anne Boleyn. The Popes also, by whom Elizabeth was justly 
 regarded as the great prop of the Reformed religion, endeav- 
 oured to excite against her such of her subjects as still owned 
 obedience to the see of Rome. At length, in 1570-71, Pius 
 V., then the reigning Pope, published a bull, or sentence of
 
 344 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXIII 
 
 excommunication, by which he deprived Queen Elizabeth (as 
 far as his sentence could) of her hopes of heaven, and of her 
 kingdom upon earth, excluded her from the privileges of Chris- 
 tians, and delivered her over as a criminal to whomsoever 
 should step forth to vindicate the Church, by putting to death 
 its greatest enemy. The zeal of the English Catholics was 
 kindled by this warrant from the head of their Church. One 
 of them [named Felton] was found bold enough to fix a copy 
 of the sentence of excommunication upon the door of the 
 Bishop of London, and various plots were entered into among 
 the Papists for dethroning Elizabeth, and transferring the king- 
 dom of England to Mary, a sovereign of their own religion, 
 and in their eyes the lawful successor to the crown. 
 
 As fast as one of these conspiracies was discovered, another 
 seemed to form itself; and as the Catholics were promised 
 powerful assistance from the King of Spain, and were urged 
 forward by the impulse of enthusiasm, the danger appeared 
 every day more and more imminent It cannot be doubted 
 that several of these plots were communicated to Mary in her 
 imprisonment ; and, considering what grounds she had to com- 
 plain of Elizabeth, it would have been wonderful if she had 
 betrayed to her jailer the schemes which were formed to set 
 her at liberty. But these conspiracies coming so closely the 
 one after the other, produced one of the most extraordinary 
 laws that was ever passed in England ; declaring that if any 
 rebellion, or any attempt against Queen Elizabeth's person, 
 should be meditated by, or for, any person pretending a right 
 to the crown, the Queen might grant a commission to twenty- 
 five persons, who should have power to examine into, and pass 
 sentence upon, such offences ; and, after judgment given, a pro- 
 clamation was to be issued, depriving the persons in whose 
 behalf the plots or rebellion had been made of all right to the 
 throne ; and it was enacted that they might be prosecuted to 
 the death. The hardship of this enactment consisted in its 
 rendering Mary, against whom it was levelled, responsible for 
 the deeds of others, as well as for her own actions ; so that if 
 the Catholics arose in rebellion, although without warrant from 
 Mary, or even against her inclination, she was nevertheless 
 rendered liable to lose her right of succession to the crown, 
 and indeed to forfeit her life. Nothing short of the zeal of the 
 English Government for the Reformed religion, and for the
 
 1586 TRIAL OF MARY 345 
 
 personal safety of Elizabeth, could have induced them to consent 
 to a law so unjust and so oppressive. 
 
 This act was passed in 1585, and in the following year a 
 pretext was found for making it the ground of proceedings 
 against Mary. Anthony Babington, a young gentleman of 
 fortune and of talents, but a zealous Catholic, and a fanatical 
 enthusiast for the cause of the Scottish Queen, had associated 
 with himself five resolute friends and adherents, all men of 
 condition, in the desperate enterprise of assassinating Queen 
 Elizabeth, and setting Mary at liberty. But their schemes 
 were secretly betrayed to Walsingham, the celebrated minister 
 of the Queen of England. They were suffered to proceed as 
 far as was thought safe, then seized, tried, and executed. 
 
 It was next resolved upon, that Mary should be brought to 
 trial for her life, under pretence of her having encouraged Ba- 
 bington and his companions in their desperate pur- 
 pose. She was removed to the castle of Fotheringay, 
 and placed under two keepers, Sir Amias Paulet and 
 Sir Drew Drury, whose well-known hatred of the Catholic 
 religion was supposed to render them inclined to treat their 
 unfortunate captive with the utmost rigour. Her private cabi- 
 net was broken open and stripped of its contents, her most 
 secret papers were seized upon and examined, her principal 
 domestics were removed from her person, her money and her 
 jewels were taken from her. Queen Elizabeth then proceeded 
 to name Commissioners, in terms of the Act of Parliament 
 which I have told you of. They were forty in number, of the 
 most distinguished of her statesmen and nobility, and were 
 directed to proceed to the trial of Mary for her alleged acces- 
 sion to Babington's conspiracy. 
 
 On the 14th October 1586 these Commissioners held their 
 court in the great hall of Fotheringay Castle. Mary, left to 
 herself, and having counsel of no friend, advocate, or lawyer, 
 made, nevertheless, a defence becoming her high birth and dis- 
 tinguished talents. She refused to plead before a court com- 
 posed of persons who were of a degree inferior to her own ; 
 mid when at length she agreed to hear and answer the accusa- 
 tion brought against her, she made her protest that she did so, 
 not as owning the authority of the court, but purely in vindica- 
 tion of her own character. 
 
 The attorney and solicitor for Queen Elizabeth stated the
 
 346 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXIII 
 
 conspiracy of Babingtou, as it unquestionably existed, and pro- 
 duced copies of letters which Mary was alleged to have written, 
 approving the insurrection, and even the assassination of 
 Elizabeth. The declarations of Naue and Curie, two of Mary's 
 secretaries, went to confirm the fact of her having had corre- 
 spondence with Babington, by intervention of a priest called 
 Ballard. The confessions of Babington and his associates were 
 then read, avowing Mary's share in their criminal undertaking. 
 
 To these charges Mary answered, by denying that she ever 
 had any correspondence with Ballard, or that she had ever 
 written such letters as those produced against her. She in- 
 sisted that she could only be affected by such writings as bore 
 her own hand and seal, and not by copies. She urged that the 
 declarations of her secretaries were given in private, and pro- 
 bably under the influence of fear of torture, or hope of reward, 
 of which, indeed, there is every probability. Lastly, she 
 pleaded that the confessions of the conspirators could not affect 
 her, since they were infamous persons, dying for an infamous 
 crime. If their evidence was designed to be used, they ought 
 to have been pardoned, and brought forward in person, to bear 
 witness against her. Mary admitted that, having for many 
 years despaired of relief or favour from Queen Elizabeth, she 
 had, in her distress, applied to other sovereigns, and that she 
 had also endeavoured to procure some favour for the persecuted 
 Catholics of England ; but she denied that she had endeavoured 
 to purchase liberty for herself, or advantage for the Catholics, 
 at the expense of shedding the blood of any one ; and declared, 
 that if she had given consent in word, or even in thought, to 
 the murder of Elizabeth, she was willing, not only to submit 
 to the doom of men, but even to renounce the mercy of God. 
 
 The evidence which was brought to convict the Queen of 
 Scotland was such as would not now affect the life of the 
 meanest criminal; yet the Commission had the cruelty and 
 meanness to declare Mary guilty of having been accessary to 
 Babington's conspiracy, and of having contrived and endeav- 
 oured the death of Queen Elizabeth, contrary to the statute 
 made for security of the Queen's life. And the Parliament of 
 England approved of and ratified this iniquitous sentence. 
 
 It was not perhaps to be expected that James VI. should 
 have had much natural affection for his mother, whom he bad 
 never seen since his infancy, and who had, doubtless, been re-
 
 1586 TRIAL OF MARY 347 
 
 presented to him as a very bad woman, and as one desirous, if 
 Bhe could have obtained her liberty, of dispossessing him of 
 the crown which he wore, and resuming it herself. He had, 
 therefore, seen Mary's captivity with little of the sympathy 
 which a child ought to feel for a parent. But, upon learning 
 these proceedings against her life, he must have been destitute 
 of the most ordinary feelings of human nature, and would have 
 made himself a reproach and scandal throughout all Europe, 
 if he had not interfered in her behalf. He therefore sent am- 
 bassadors, first, Sir William Keith, and after him the Master 
 of Gray, to intercede with Queen Elizabeth, and to use both 
 persuasion and threats to preserve the life of his mother. The 
 friendship of Scotland was at this moment of much greater 
 importance to England than at any previous period of her 
 history. The King of Spain was in the act of assembling a 
 vast navy and army (boastingly called the Invincible Armada), 
 by which he proposed to invade and conquer England ; and if 
 James VI. had been disposed to open the ports and harbours 
 of Scotland to the Spanish fleets and armies, he might have 
 greatly facilitated this formidable invasion, by diminishing 
 the risk which the Armada might incur from the Engb'sh 
 fleet. 
 
 It therefore seems probable, that had James himself been 
 very serious in his interposition, or had his ambassador been 
 disposed to urge the interference committed to his charge with 
 due firmness and vigour, it could scarce have failed in being 
 successful, at least for a time. But the Master of Gray, as is 
 now admitted, privately encouraged Elizabeth and her ministers 
 to proceed in the cruel path they had chosen, and treacher- 
 ously gave them reason to believe, that though, for the sake 
 of decency, James found it necessary to interfere in his 
 mother's behalf, yet, in his secret mind, he would not be very 
 sorry that Mary, who, in the eyes of a part of his subjects, 
 was still regarded as sovereign of Scotland, should be quietly 
 removed out of the way. From the intrigues of this treacher- 
 ous ambassador, Elizabeth was led to trust that the resent- 
 ment of the King for his mother's death would neither be 
 long nor violent ; and, knowing her own influence with a 
 great part of the Scottish nobility, and the zeal of the Scots in 
 general for the Reformed religion, she concluded that the 
 motives arising out of these circumstances would prevent
 
 348 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXIII 
 
 James from making common cause against England with the 
 King of Spain. 
 
 At any other period in tlie English history, it is probable 
 that a sovereign attempting such an action as Elizabeth medi- 
 tated, might have been interrupted by the generous and manly 
 sense of justice and humanity peculiar to a free and high-minded 
 people like those of England. But the despotic reign of Henry 
 VIII. had too much familiarised the English with the sight of 
 the blood of great persons, and even of queens, poured forth by 
 the blow of the executioner, upon the slightest pretexts ; and 
 the idea that Elizabeth's life could not be in safety while Mary 
 existed, was, in the deep sentiment of loyalty and affection 
 which they entertained for their Queen (and which the general 
 tenour of her reign well deserved), strong enough to render 
 them blind to the gross injustice exercised upon a stranger and 
 a Catholic. 
 
 Yet with all the prejudices of her subjects in her own favour, 
 Elizabeth would fain have had Mary's death take place in such 
 a way as that she herself should not appear to have any hand 
 in it. Her ministers were employed to write letters to Mary's 
 keepers, insinuating what a good service they would do to 
 Elizabeth and the Protestant religion, if Mary could be privately 
 assassinated. But these stern guardians, though strict and 
 severe in their conduct towards the Queen, would not listen to 
 such persuasions ; and well was it for them that they did not, 
 for Elizabeth would certainly have thrown the whole blame of 
 the deed upon their shoulders, and left them to answer it with 
 their lives and fortunes. She was angry with them, neverthe- 
 less, for their refusal, and called Paulet a precise fellow, loud 
 in boasting of his fidelity, but slack in giving proof of it. 
 
 As, however, it was necessary, from the scruples of Paulet 
 and Drury, to proceed in all form, Elizabeth signed a warrant 
 for the execution of the sentence pronounced on Queen Mary, 
 and gave it to Davison, her secretary of state, commanding that 
 it should be sealed with the great seal of England. Davison 
 laid the warrant, signed by Elizabeth, before the Privy Council, 
 and next day the great seal was placed upon it. Elizabeth, 
 upon hearing this, affected some displeasure that the warrant 
 had been so speedily prepared, and told the secretary that it 
 was the opinion of wise men that some other course might be 
 taken with Queen Mary. Davison, in this pretended change
 
 1587 EXECUTION OF MARY 349 
 
 of mind, saw some danger that his mistress might throw the 
 fault of the execution upon him after it had taken place. He 
 therefore informed the Keeper of the Seals what the Queen had 
 said, protesting he would not venture farther in the matter. 
 The Privy Council, having met together, and conceiving them- 
 selves certain what were the Queen's real wishes, determined 
 to save her the pain of expressing them more broadly, and 
 resolving that the blame, if any might arise, should be common 
 to them all, sent off the warrant for execution with their clerk 
 Beale. The Earls of Kent and Shrewsbury, with the High 
 Sheriff of the county, were empowered and commanded to see 
 the fatal mandate carried into effect without delay. 
 
 Mary received the melancholy intelligence with the utmost 
 firmness. " The soul," she said, " was undeserving of the joys 
 of Heaven, which would shrink from the blow of an executioner. 
 She had not," she added, " expected that her kinswoman would 
 have consented to her death, but submitted not the less willingly 
 to her fate." She earnestly requested the assistance of a priest ; 
 but this favour, which is granted to the worst criminals, and 
 upon which Catholics lay particular weight, was cruelly refused. 
 The Queen then wrote her last will, and short and affectionate 
 letters of farewell to her relations in France. She distributed 
 among her attendants such valuables as had been left her, and 
 desired them to keep them for her sake. This occupied the 
 evening before the day appointed for the fatal execution. 
 
 On the 8th February 1587 the Queen, still maintaining 
 the same calm and undisturbed appearance which she had dis- 
 played at her pretended trial, was brought down to the great 
 hall of the castle, where a scaffold was erected, on which were 
 placed a block and a chair, the whole being covered with black 
 cloth. The Master of her Household, Sir Andrew Melville, 
 was permitted to take a last leave of the mistress whom he had 
 served long and faithfully. He burst into loud lamentations, 
 bewailing her fate, and deploring his own in being destined to 
 carry such news to Scotland. " Weep not, my good Melville," 
 said the Queen, " but rather rejoice ; for thou shalt this day 
 see Mary Stewart relieved from all her sorrows." She obtained 
 permission, with some difficulty, that her maids should be 
 allowed to attend her on the scaffold. It was objected to, that 
 the extravagance of their grief might disturb the proceedings ; 
 she engaged for them that they would be silent.
 
 350 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXIII 
 
 When the Queen was seated in the fatal chair, she heard 
 the death warrant read by Beale, the Clerk to the Privy Council, 
 with an appearance of indifference; nor did she seem more 
 attentive to the devotional exercises of the Dean of Peter- 
 borough, in which, as a Catholic, she could not conscientiously 
 join. She implored the mercy of Heaven, after the form pre- 
 scribed by her own Church. She then prepared herself for 
 execution, taking off such parts of her dress as might interfere 
 with the deadly blow. The executioners offered their assist- 
 ance, but she modestly refused it, saying, she had neither been 
 accustomed to undress before so many spectators, nor to be 
 served by such grooms of the chamber. She quietly chid her 
 maids, who were unable to withhold their cries of lamentation, 
 and reminded them that she had engaged for their silence. 
 Last of all Mary laid her head on the block, and the execu- 
 tioner severed it from her body with two strokes of his axe. 
 The headsman held it up in his hand, and the Dean of Peter- 
 borough cried out, " So perish all Queen Elizabeth's enemies ! " 
 No voice, save that of the Earl of Kent, could answer Amen I 
 the rest were choked with sobs and tears. 
 
 Thus died Queen Mary, aged a little above forty-four years. 
 She was eminent for beauty, for talents, and accomplishments, 
 nor is there reason to doubt her natural goodness of heart, and 
 courageous manliness of disposition. Yet she was, in every 
 sense, one of the most unhappy princesses that ever lived, 
 from the moment when she came into the world, in an hour of 
 defeat and danger, to that in which a bloody and violent death 
 closed a weary captivity of eighteen years. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth, in the same spirit of hypocrisy which had 
 characterised all her proceedings towards Mary, no sooner knew 
 that the deed was done, than she hastened to deny her own 
 share in it. She pretended, that Davison had acted positively 
 against her command in laying the warrant before the Privy 
 Council ; and that she might seem the more serious in her 
 charge, she caused him to be fined in a large sum of money, 
 and deprived him of his offices, and of her favour for ever. 
 She sent a special ambassador to King James, to apologise for 
 " this unhappy accident," as she chose to term the execution of 
 Queen Mary. 
 
 James at first testified high indignation, with which the 
 Scottish nation was well disposed to sympathise. He refused
 
 1587 JAMES VI. 351 
 
 to admit the English envoy to his presence, and uttered menaces 
 of revenge. When a general mourning was ordered for the 
 departed Queen, the Earl of Argyle appeared at the court in 
 armour, as if that were the proper way of showing the national 
 sense of the treatment which Mary had received. But James's 
 hopes and fears were now fixed upon the succession to the 
 English crown, which would have been forfeited by engaging 
 in a war with Elizabeth. Most of his ancestors, indeed, would 
 have set that objection at defiance, and have broken into the 
 English frontier at the head of as large an army as Scotland 
 could raise ; but James was by nature timorous and unwarlike. 
 He was conscious that the poor and divided country of Scotland 
 was not fit, in its own strength, to encounter a kingdom so 
 wealthy and so unanimous as England. On the other hand, if 
 James formed an alliance with the Spanish monarch, he con- 
 sidered that he would probably have been deserted by the 
 Reformed part of his subjects ; and, besides, he was aware that 
 Philip of Spain himself laid claim to the Crown of England ; 
 so that to assist that prince in his meditated invasion would 
 have been to rear up an important obstacle to the accomplish- 
 ment of his own hopes of the English succession. James, 
 therefore, gradually softening towards Queen Elizabeth, affected 
 to believe the excuses which she offered ; and in a short time 
 they were upon as friendly a footing as they had been before 
 the death of the unfortunate Maiy. 
 
 James was now in full possession of the Scottish kingdom, 
 and showed himself to as much, or greater advantage, than at 
 any subsequent period of his life. After the removal of the 
 vile James Stewart from his counsels, he acted chiefly by the 
 advice of Sir John Maitland, the Chancellor, a brother of that 
 Maitland of Lethington whom we have so often mentioned. 
 He was a prudent and good minister ; and as it was James's 
 nature, in which there was a strange mixture of wisdom and of 
 weakness, to act with sagacity, or otherwise, according to the 
 counsels which he received, there now arose in Britain, and 
 even in Europe, a more general respect for his character, than 
 was afterwards entertained when it became better known. 
 
 Besides, James's reign in Scotland was marked with so many 
 circumstances of difficulty, and even of danger, that he was 
 placed upon his guard, and compelled to conduct himself with 
 the strictest attention to the rules of prudence; for he had
 
 352 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP, xxxin 
 
 little chance of overawing his turbulent nobility, but by main- 
 taining the dignity of the royal character. If the King had 
 possessed the ability of distributing largesses among his power- 
 ful subjects, his influence would have been greater ; but this 
 was so far from being the case, that his means of supporting his 
 royal state, excepting an annuity allowed to him by Elizabeth 
 of five thousand pounds yearly, were in the last degree pre- 
 carious. This was owing in a great measure to the plundering 
 of the revenue of the crown during the civil wars of his minority, 
 and the regency of the Earl of Morton. The King was so 
 dependent that he could not even give an entertainment without 
 begging poultry and venison from some of his more wealthy 
 subjects ; and his wardrobe was so ill-furnished that he was 
 obliged to request the loan of a pair of silk hose from the Earl of 
 Mar, that he might be suitably apparelled to receive the Spanish 
 ambassador. 
 
 There were also peculiarities in James's situation which ren- 
 dered it embarrassing. He had extreme difficulty in his neces- 
 sary intercourse with the Scottish clergy, who possessed a 
 strong influence over the minds of the people, and sometimes 
 used it in interference with public affairs. Although they had 
 not, like the bishops of England and other countries, a seat in 
 Parliament, yet they did not the less intermeddle with politics, 
 and often preached from the pulpit against the King and his 
 measures. They used this freedom the more boldly, because 
 they asserted that they were not answerable to any civil court 
 for what they might say in their sermons, but only to the 
 spiritual courts, as they were called ; that is, the Synods and 
 General Assemblies of the Church, composed chiefly of clergy- 
 men like themselves, and who, therefore, were not likely to put 
 a check upon the freedom of speech used by their brethren. 
 
 Upon one occasion, which occurred 17th December 1596, 
 disputes of this kind between the King and the Church came 
 to such a height that the rabble of the city, inflamed by the 
 violence of some of the sermons which they heard, broke out 
 into tumult, and besieged the door of the Tolbooth, where 
 James was sitting in the administration of justice, and threat- 
 ened to break it open. The King was saved by the interven 
 tion of the better disposed part of the inhabitants, who rose in 
 arms for his protection. Nevertheless he left Edinburgh the 
 next day in great anger, and prepared to take away, the privi-
 
 I5 87 -91 JAMES VI. 353 
 
 leges of the city, as a punishment for the insolence of the rioters. 
 He was appeased with much difficulty, and, as it seemed, was 
 by no means entirely satisfied ; for he caused the High Street 
 to be occupied by a great number of the Border and Highland 
 clans. The citizens, terrified by the appearance of these formid- 
 able and lawless men, concluded that the town was to be plun- 
 dered, and the alarm was very great. But the King, who only 
 desired to frighten them, made the magistrates a long harangue 
 upon the excesses of which he complained, and admitted them 
 to pardon, upon their submission. 
 
 Another great plague of James the Sixth's reign was the 
 repeated insurrections of a turbulent nobleman, called Francis 
 Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, a different person, of course, from 
 James Hepburn, who bore that title in the reign of Queen 
 Mary. This second Earl of Bothwell was a relation of the 
 King's, and made several violent attempts to get possession of 
 his person, with the purpose of governing the state, as the 
 Douglases did of old, by keeping the King prisoner. But 
 although he nearly succeeded on one or two occasions, yet 
 James was always rescued from his hands, and was finally 
 powerful enough to banish Bothwell altogether from the country. 
 He died in contempt and exile. 
 
 But by far the greatest pest of Scotland at that time was 
 the deadly feuds among the nobility and gentry, which even- 
 tually led to the most bloody consequences, and were perpetuated 
 from father to son ; while the King's good nature, which ren- 
 dered him very ready to grant pardons to those who had com- 
 mitted such inhuman outrages, made the evil still more frequent. 
 The following is a remarkable instance : 
 
 The Earl of Huntly, head of the powerful family of Gordon, 
 and the man of greatest consequence in the north of Scotland, 
 had chanced to have some feudal differences with the Earl of 
 Murray, son-in-law of the Kegent-earl of the same name, in the 
 course of which, John Gordon, a brother of Gordon of Cluny, 
 was killed by a shot from Murray's castle of Darnaway. This 
 was enough to make the two families irreconcilable enemies, 
 even if they had been otherwise on friendly terms. Murray 
 was so handsome and personable a man, that he was generally 
 known by the name of the Bonnie Earl of Murray. About 
 1591-92 an accusation was brought against Murray, for having 
 given some countenance or assistance to Stewart, Earl of Both- 
 
 23
 
 354 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXIII 
 
 well, in a recent treasonable exploit. James, without recollecting, 
 perhaps, the hostility between the two earls, sent Huntly with 
 a commission to bring the Earl of Murray to his presence. 
 Huntly probably rejoiced in the errand, as giving him an 
 opportunity of avenging himself on his feudal enemy. He beset 
 the house of Donibristle, on the northern side of the Forth, 
 and summoned Murray to surrender. In reply, a gun was fired, 
 which mortally wounded one of the Gordons. The assailants 
 proceeded to set fire to the house ; when Dunbar, Sheriff of the 
 county of Moray, said to the Earl, " Let us not stay to be 
 burned in the flaming house ; I will go out foremost, and the 
 Gordons, taking me for your lordship, will kill me, while you 
 escape in the confusion." They rushed out among their 
 enemies accordingly, and Dunbar was slain. But his death did 
 not save his friend, as he had generoxisly intended. Murray 
 indeed escaped for the moment, but as he fled towards the 
 rocks by the seashore, he was traced by the silken tassels 
 attached to his headpiece, which had taken fire as he broke 
 out from among the flames. By this means the pursuers 
 followed him down amongst the cliffs near the sea, and Gordon 
 of Buckie, who is said to have been the first that overtook him, 
 wounded him mortally. As Murray was gasping in the last 
 agony, Huntly came up ; and it is alleged by tradition, that 
 Gordon pointed his dirk against the person of his chief, saying, 
 " By Heaven, my lord, you shall be as deep in as I," and so 
 compelled him to wound Murray whilst he was dying. Huntly, 
 with a wavering hand, struck the expiring earl on the face. 
 Thinking of his superior beauty, even in that moment of 
 parting life, Murray stammered out the dying words, "You 
 have spoiled a better face than your own." 
 
 After this deed of violence, Huntly did not choose to return 
 to Edinburgh, but departed for the North. He took refuge 
 for the moment in the castle of Ravenscraig, belonging to the 
 Lord Sinclair, who told him, with a mixture of Scottish caution 
 and Scottish hospitality, that he was welcome to come in, but 
 would have been twice as welcome to have passed by. Gordon 
 of Buckie, when a long period had elapsed, avowed his contri- 
 tion for the guilt he had incurred. 
 
 Soon afterwards, three lords, the Earls of Huntly and Errol, 
 who had always professed the Catholic religion, and the young 
 Earl of Angus, who had become a convert to that faith, were
 
 I59I-S JAMES VI. 355 
 
 accused of corresponding with the King of Spain, and of 
 designing to introduce Spanish troops into Scotland for the 
 restoration of the Catholic religion. The story which was told 
 of this conspiracy does not seem very probable. However, the 
 King ordered the Earl of Argyle to march against the Popish 
 lords, with the northern forces of Lord Forbes and others, who 
 were chiefly Protestants, and entered into the war with the 
 religious emulation which divided the Reformers from the 
 Catholics. Argyle likewise levied great bands of the Western 
 Highlanders, who cared but little about religion, but were 
 extremely desirous of plunder. 
 
 The army of Argyle, about ten thousand strong, encountered 
 the forces of Huntly and Errol at Glenlivat, on the 3d of 
 October 1594. The shock was very smart. But the Gordons 
 and Hays, though far inferior in numbers, were gentlemen, 
 well mounted, and completely armed, and the followers of 
 Argyle had only their plaids and bonnets. Besides, the two 
 earls had two or three pieces of cannon, of which the High- 
 landers, unaccustomed to anything of the kind, were very 
 apprehensive. The consequence of the encounter was, that 
 though the cavalry had to charge up a hill, encumbered with 
 rocks and stones, and although the Highlanders fought with 
 great courage, the small body of Huntly and Errol, not 
 amounting to above fifteen hundred horse, broke, and dispersed 
 with great loss the numerous host opposed to them. On the 
 side of Argyle there was some treachery; the Grants, it is 
 said, near neighbours, and some of them dependents, of the 
 Gordons, joined their old friends in the midst of the fray. The 
 Chief of MacLean and his followers defended themselves with 
 great courage, but were at length completely routed. This 
 was one of the occasions on which the Highland irregular 
 infantry were found inferior to the compact charge of the 
 cavaliers of the Lowland counties, with their long lances, who 
 beat them down, and scattered them in every direction. 
 
 Upon learning Argyle's defeat, the King himself advanced 
 into the north with a small army, and restored tranquillity by 
 punishing the insurgent earls. 
 
 We have before mentioned, that in those wild days the very 
 children had their deadly feuds, carried weapons, and followed 
 the bloody example of their fathers. The following instance 
 of their early ferocity occurred in September 1696. The
 
 356 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXIII 
 
 scholars of the High School of Edinburgh, having a dispute 
 with their masters about the length of their holidays, resolved 
 to stand out for a longer vacation. Accordingly, they took 
 possession of the school in that sort of mutinous manner, 
 which in England is called Barring-out, and resisted the admis- 
 sion of the masters. Such foolish things have often occurred 
 in public schools elsewhere ; but what was peculiar to the High 
 School boys of Edinburgh was, that they defended the school 
 with sword and pistol, and when Bailie MacMorran, one of the 
 magistrates, gave directions to force the entrance, three of the 
 boys fired, and killed him on the spot. There were none of 
 them punished, because it was alleged that it could not be 
 known which of them did the deed ; but rather because two of 
 them were gentlemen's sons. So you see the bloodthirsty 
 spirit of the times descended even to children. 
 
 To do justice to James VI., he adopted every measure in 
 his power to put an end to these fatal scenes of strife and 
 bloodshed. "Wise laws were made for preventing the outrages 
 which had been so general ; and in order to compose the feuds 
 amongst the nobles, James invited the principal lords, 
 wno k^ qua 176 ! 8 ? to a great banquet, where he en- 
 deavoured to make them agree together, and caused 
 them to take each other's hands and become friends on the 
 spot. They obeyed him; and proceeding himself at their 
 head, he made them walk in procession to the cross of Edin- 
 burgh, 1 still hand in hand, in token of perfect reconciliation, 
 whilst the provost and magistrates danced before them for joy, 
 to see such a prospect of peace and concord. Perhaps this 
 reconciliation was too hasty to last long in every instance ; but 
 upon the whole, the authority of the law gradually gained 
 strength, and the passions of men grew less fierce as it became 
 more unsafe to indulge them. 
 
 I must now fulfil my promise, and in this place, tell you of 
 another exploit on the Borders, the last that was 
 * performed there, but certainly not the least remark- 
 able for valour and conduct. 
 
 The English and Scottish Wardens, or their deputies, had 
 held a day of truce for settling Border disputes, and, having 
 
 1 "A collation of wine and sweetmeats was prepared at the public 
 Cross, and there they, King and nobles, drank to each other with all tue 
 jigns of reciprocal forgiveness and of future friendship. " ROBBHTSON.
 
 1595-6 BORDER RAID 357 
 
 parted friends, both, with their followers, were returning home. 
 At every such meeting it was the general rule on the Borders 
 that there should be an absolute truce for twenty-four hours, 
 and that all men who attended the Warden on either side to 
 the field should have permission to ride home again undisturbed. 
 
 Now, there had come to the meeting, with other Border 
 men, a notorious depredator, called William Armstrong, but 
 more commonly known by the name of Kinmont Willie. This 
 man was riding home on the north or Scottish side of the Lid- 
 dell, where that stream divides England and Scotland, when 
 some of the English who had enmity against him, or had 
 suffered by his incursions, were unable to resist the temptation 
 to attack him. They accordingly dashed across the river, 
 pursued Kinmont Willie more than a mile within Scotland, 
 made him prisoner, and brought him to Carlisle Castle. 
 
 As the man talked boldly and resolutely about the breach 
 of truce in his person, and demanded peremptorily to be set at 
 liberty, Lord Scrope told him scoffingly, that before he left the 
 castle he should bid him " Farewell," meaning, that he should 
 not go without his leave. The prisoner boldly answered, " That 
 he would not go without bidding him good-night." 
 
 The Lord of Buccleuch, who was Warden, or Keeper, of 
 Liddesdale, demanded the restoration of Kinmont Willie to 
 liberty, and complained of his being taken and imprisoned as 
 a breach of the Border laws, and an insult done to himself. 
 Lord Scrope refused, or at least evaded, giving up his prisoner. 
 Buccleuch then sent him a challenge, which Lord Scrope de- 
 clined to accept on the ground of his employment in the public 
 service. The Scottish chief, therefore, resolved to redress by 
 force the insult which his country as well as himself had 
 sustained on the occasion. He collected about three hundred 
 of his best men, and made a night march to Carlisle Castle. A 
 small party of chosen men dismounted, while the rest remained 
 on horseback, to repel any attack from the town. The night 
 being misty and rainy, the party to whom that duty was 
 committed approached the foot of the walls, and tried to scale 
 them by means of ladders which they had brought with them 
 for the purpose. But the ladders were found too short. They 
 then, with mining instruments which they had provided, burst 
 open a postern, or wicket-door, and entered the castle. Their 
 chief had given them strict orders to do no harm save to those
 
 358 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXin 
 
 who opposed them, so that the few guards, whom the alarm 
 brought together, were driven back without much injury. 
 Being masters of the castle, the trumpets of the Scottish 
 Warden were then blown, to the no small terror of the inhabit- 
 ants of Carlisle, surprised out of their quiet sleep by the sounds 
 of invasion at so early an hour. The bells of the castle rang 
 out; those of the Cathedral and Moot-hall answered; drums 
 beat to arms ; and beacons were lighted, to alarm the warlike 
 country around. 
 
 In the meanwhile, the Scottish party had done the errand 
 they came for. They had freed Kinmont Willie from his 
 dungeon. The first thing Armstrong did was to shout a good- 
 night to Lord Scrope, asking him, at the same time, if he had 
 any news for Scotland. The Borderers strictly obeyed the 
 commands of their chief, in forbearing to take any booty. 
 They returned from the castle, bringing with them their rescued 
 countryman, and a gentleman named Spenser, an attendant on 
 the constable of the castle. Buccleuch dismissed him, with 
 his commendations to Salkeld the constable, whom he esteemed, 
 he said, a better gentleman than Lord Scrope, bidding him say 
 it was the Warden of Liddesdale who had done the exploit, 
 and praying the constable, if he desired the name of a man 
 of honour, to issue forth and seek a revenge. Buccleuch then 
 ordered the retreat, which he performed with great leisure, and 
 re-entered Scotland at sunrise in honour and safety. " There 
 had never been a more gallant deed of vassalage done in 
 Scotland," says an old historian, "no, not in Wallace's 
 days." 
 
 Queen Elizabeth, as you may imagine, was dreadfully angry 
 at this insult, and demanded that Buccleuch should be delivered 
 up to the English, as he had committed so great an aggression 
 upon their frontier during the time of peace. The matter 
 was laid before the Scottish Parliament. King James himself 
 pleaded the question on the part of Elizabeth, willing, it may 
 be supposed, to recommend himself to that princess by his 
 tameness and docility. The Secretary of State replied in de- 
 fence of Buccleuch ; and the Scottish Parliament finally voted 
 that they would refer the question to commissioners, to be 
 chosen for both nations, and would abide by their decision. 
 But concerning the proposed surrender of Buccleuch to England, 
 the President declared, with a loud voice, that it would be time
 
 i6oo GOWRIE CONSPIRACY 359 
 
 enough for Buccleuch to go to England when the King should 
 pass there in person. 
 
 Buccleuch finally ended the discussion by going to England 
 at the King's personal request, and on the understanding that no 
 evil was to be done to him. Queen Elizabeth desired to see him 
 personally, and demanded of him how he dared commit such 
 aggression on her territory. He answered undauntedly, that 
 he knew not that thing which a man dared NOT do. Elizabeth 
 admired the answer, and treated this powerful Border chief with 
 distinction during the time he remained in England, which was 
 not long. 
 
 But the strangest adventure of James's reign was the event 
 called the Gowrie Conspiracy, over which there hangs a sort 
 of mystery, which time has not even yet completely dispelled. 
 You must recollect that there was an Earl of Gowrie condemned 
 and executed when James was but a boy. This nobleman left 
 two sons, bearing the family name of Ruthven, who were well 
 educated abroad, and accounted hopeful young men. The King 
 restored to the eldest the title and estate of Gowrie, and favoured 
 them both very much. 
 
 Now, it chanced in the month of August 1600 that 
 Alexander Ruthven, the younger of the two brothers, came 
 early one morning to the King, who was then hunting in the 
 Park of Falkland, and told him a story of his having seized a 
 suspicious-looking man, a Jesuit, as he supposed, with a large 
 pot of gold under his cloak. This man Ruthven said he had 
 detained prisoner at his brother's house, in Perth, till the King 
 should examine him, and take possession of the treasure. With 
 this story he decoyed James from the hunting-field, and per- 
 suaded him to ride with him to Perth, without any other 
 company than a few noblemen and attendants, who followed 
 the King without orders. 
 
 When they arrived at Perth, they entered Gowrie House, 
 the mansion of the Earl, a large massive building, having 
 gardens which stretched down to the river Tay. The Earl of 
 Gowrie was, or seemed, surprised, to see the King arrive so 
 unexpectedly, and caused some entertainment to be hastily pre- 
 pared for his Majesty's refreshment. After the King had 
 dined, Alexander Ruthven pressed him to come with him to 
 see the prisoner in private ; and James, curious by nature, and 
 sufficiently indigent to be inquisitive after money, followed him
 
 360 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER oHAP. XXXIII 
 
 from one apartment to another, until Ruthven led him into a 
 little turret, where there stood not a prisoner with a pot of 
 gold but an armed man, prepared, as it seemed, for some 
 violent enterprise. 
 
 The King started back, but Ruthven snatched the dagger 
 which the man wore, and, pointing it to James's breast, re- 
 minded him of his father the Earl of Gowrie's death, and com- 
 manded him, upon pain of death, to submit to his pleasure. 
 The King replied that he was but a boy when the Earl of 
 Gowrie suffered, and upbraided Ruthven with ingratitude. 
 The conspirator, moved by remorse or some other reason, as- 
 sured the King that his life should be safe, and left him in the 
 turret with the armed man, who, not very well selected to aid 
 in a purpose so desperate, stood shaking in his armour, without 
 assisting either his master or the King. 
 
 Let us now see what was passing below, during this strange 
 scene betwixt the King and Ruthven. The attendants of 
 James had begun to wonder at his absence, when they were 
 suddenly informed by a servant of the Earl of Gowrie, that 
 the King had mounted his horse, and had set out on his return 
 to Falkland. The noblemen and attendants rushed into the 
 courtyard of the mansion, and called for their horses, the Earl 
 of Gowrie at the same time hurrying them away. Here the 
 porter interfered, and said the King could not have left the 
 house, since he had not passed the gate, of which he had the 
 keys. Gowrie, on the other hand, called the man a liar, and 
 insisted that the King had departed. 
 
 While the attendants of James knew not what to think, a 
 half smothered, yet terrified voice, was heard to scream from 
 the window of a turret above their heads, " Help ! Treason ! 
 Help ! my Lord of Mar ! " They looked upwards, and beheld 
 James's face in great agitation pushed through the window, 
 while a hand was seen grasping his throat, as if some one 
 behind endeavoured by violence to draw him back. 
 
 The explanation was as follows : The King when left 
 alone with the armed man, had, it seems, prevailed upon him 
 to open the lattice window. This was just done when Alex- 
 ander Ruthven again entered the turret, and, swearing that 
 there was no remedy, but the King must needs die, he seized 
 on him, and endeavoured by main force to tie his hands with 
 a garter. James resisted, in the extremity of despair, and
 
 i6oo GOWRIE CONSPIRACY 361 
 
 dragging Ruthven to the window, now open, called out to hia 
 attendants in the manner we have described. His retinue has- 
 tened to his assistance. The greater part ran to the principal 
 staircase, of which they found the doors shut, and immediately 
 endeavoured to force them open. Meantime a page of the 
 King's, called Sir John Ramsay, discovered a back stair which 
 led him to the turret, where Ruthven and the King were still 
 struggling. Ramsay stabbed Ruthven twice with his dagger, 
 James calling to him to strike high, as he had a doublet of 
 proof on him. Ramsay then thrust Ruthven, now mortally 
 wounded, towards the private staircase, where he was met by 
 Sir Thomas Erskine and Sir Hugh Herries, two of the royal 
 attendants, who despatched him with their swords. His last 
 words were, " Alas ! I am not to blame for this action." 
 
 This danger was scarcely over, when the Earl of Gowrie 
 entered the outer chamber, with a drawn sword in each hand, 
 followed by seven attendants, demanding vengeance for the 
 death of his brother. The King's followers, only four in num- 
 ber, thrust James, for the safety of his person, back into the 
 turret-closet, and shut the door ; and then engaged in a con- 
 flict, which was the more desperate, that they fought four to 
 eight, and Herries was a lame and disabled man. But Sir John 
 Ramsay having run the Earl of Gowrie through the heart, he 
 dropped dead without speaking a word, and his servants fled. 
 The doors of the great staircase were now opened to the nobles, who 
 were endeavouring to force their way to the King's assistance. 
 
 In the meantime a new peril threatened the King and his 
 few attendants. The slain Earl of Gowrie was provost of the 
 town of Perth, and much beloved by the citizens. On hearing 
 what bad happened, they ran to arms, and surrounded the 
 mansion-house, where this tragedy had been acted, threatening, 
 that if their provost were not delivered to them safe and 
 sound, the King's green coat should pay for it. Their violence 
 was at last quieted by the magistrates of the town, and the 
 mob were prevailed on to disperse. 
 
 The object of this strange conspiracy is one of the darkest 
 in history, and what made it stranger, the armed man who was 
 stationed in the turret could throw no light upon it. He proved 
 to be one Henderson, steward to the Earl of Gowrie, who had 
 been ordered to arm himself for the purpose of taking a High- 
 land thief, and was posted in the turret by Alexander Ruthven,
 
 362 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXIII 
 
 without any intimation what he was to do ; so that the whole 
 scene came upon him by surprise. The mystery seemed 
 so impenetrable, and so much of the narrative rested upon 
 James's own testimony, that many persons of that period, and 
 even some historians of our own day, have thought that it was 
 not a conspiracy of the brothers against the King, but of the 
 King against the brothers; and that James, having taken a 
 dislike to them, had contrived the bloody scene, and then 
 thrown the blame on the Ruthvens, who suffered in it. But, 
 besides the placability and gentleness of James's disposition, 
 and besides the consideration that no adequate motive can be 
 assigned, or even conjectured, for his perpetrating such an 
 inhospitable murder, it ought to be remembered that the King 
 was naturally timorous, and could not even look at a drawn 
 sword without shuddering ; so that it is contrary to all reason 
 and probability to suppose that he could be the deviser of a 
 scheme, in which his life was repeatedly exposed to the most 
 imminent danger. However, many of the clergy refused to 
 obey James's order to keep a day of solemn thanksgiving for 
 the King's deliverance, intimating, without hesitation, that 
 they greatly doubted the truth of his story. One of them being 
 pressed by the King very hard, said " That doubtless he must 
 believe it, since his Majesty said he had seen it ; but that, had 
 he seen it himself, he would not have believed his own eyes." 
 James was much vexed with this incredulity, for it was hard 
 not to obtain credit after having been in so much danger. 
 
 Nine years after the affair, some light was thrown upon the 
 transaction by one Sprot, a notary -public, who, out of mere 
 curiosity, had possessed himself of certain letters, said to have 
 been written to the Earl of Gowrie by Robert Logan of 
 Restalrig, a scheming, turbulent, and profligate man. In these 
 papers, allusion was repeatedly made to the death of Cowrie's 
 father, to the revenge which was meditated, and to the execu- 
 tion of some great and perilous enterprise. Lastly, there was 
 intimation that the Ruthvens were to bring a prisoner by sea 
 to Logan's fortress of Fast Castle, a very strong and inaccessible 
 tower, overhanging the sea, on the coast of Berwickshire. This 
 place he recommends as suitable for keeping some important 
 prisoner in safety and concealment, and adds, he had kept 
 Bothwell there in his utmost distresses, let the King and his 
 council suy what they would.
 
 i6oo GOWR1E CONSPIRACY 363 
 
 All these expressions seemed to point at a plot, not affecting 
 the King's life, but his personal liberty, and make it probable, 
 that when Alexander Buthven had frightened the King into 
 silence and compliance, the brothers intended to carry him 
 through the gardens, and put him on board of a boat, and so 
 conveying him down the Firth of Tay, and round the north- 
 east coast of Fife, might, after making a private signal, which 
 Logan alludes to, place their royal prisoner in security in Fast 
 Castle. The seizing upon the person of the King was a 
 common enterprise among the Scottish nobles, and the father of 
 the Ruthvens had lost his life for such an attempt. Adopting 
 this as their intention, it is probable that Queen Elizabeth was 
 privy to the scheme ; and perhaps having found it suit her 
 policy to detain the person of Mary in captivity, she might 
 have formed some similar plan for obtaining the custody of her 
 son. 
 
 I must not conclude this story without observing, that 
 Logan's bones were brought into a court of justice, for the 
 purpose of being tried after death, and that he was declared 
 guilty, and a sentence of forfeiture pronounced against him. 
 But it has not been noticed that Logan, a dissolute and ex- 
 travagant man, was deprived of great part of his estate before 
 his death, and that the King, therefore, could have no lucrative 
 object in following out this ancient and barbarous form of 
 process. The fate of Sprot, the notary, was singular enough. 
 He was condemned to be hanged for keeping these treasonable 
 letters in his possession, without communicating them to the 
 Government; and he suffered death accordingly, asserting to the 
 last that the letters were genuine, and that he had only pre- 
 served them from curiosity. This fact he testified even in the 
 agonies of death ; for, being desired to give a sign of the truth 
 and sincerity of his confession, after he was thrown off from 
 the ladder, he is said to have clapped his hands three times. 
 Yet some persons continue to think, that what Sprot told 
 was untrue, and that the letters were forgeries ; but it seems 
 great incredulity to doubt the truth of a confession which 
 brought to the gallows the man who made it ; and, of late 
 years, the letters produced by Sprot are regarded as genuine 
 by the best judges of these matters. When so admitted, they 
 render it evident that the purpose of the Gowrie Conspiracy 
 was to make King James a prisoner in the remote and in-
 
 364 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXIII 
 
 accessible tower of Fast Castle, and perhaps ultimately to deliver 
 him up to Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 We now approach the end of this collection of Tales. King 
 James VI. of Scotland married the daughter of the King ot 
 Denmark, called Ann of Denmark They had a family, which 
 recommended them very much to the English people, who 
 were tired of seeing their crown pass from one female to 
 another, without any prospect of male succession. They began, 
 therefore, to turn their eyes towards James as the nearest heir 
 of King Henry VIII., and the rightful successor, when Queen 
 Elizabeth should fail. She was now old, her health broken, 
 and her feelings painfully agitated by the death of Essex, her 
 principal favourite. After his execution, she could scarcely 
 be said ever to enjoy either health or reason. She sat on a 
 pile of cushions, with her finger in her mouth, attending, as it 
 seemed, to nothing, saving to the prayers which were from 
 time to time read in her chamber. 
 
 While the Queen of England was thus struggling out the 
 last moments of life, her subjects were making interest with 
 her successor James, with whom even Cecil himself, the Prime 
 Minister of England, had long kept up a secret correspondence. 
 The breath had no sooner left Elizabeth's body than the near 
 relation and godson of the late Queen, Sir Robert Carey, got 
 on horseback, and, travelling with a rapidity which almost 
 equalled that of the modern mail-coach, carried to the Palace 
 of Holyrood the news, that James was King of England, 
 France, and Ireland, as well as of his native dominions of 
 Scotland. 
 
 James arrived in London on the 7th of May 1G03, and 
 took possession of his new realms without the slightest oppo- 
 sition ; and thus the island of Great Britain, so long divided 
 into the separate kingdoms of England and Scotland, became 
 subject to the same prince. Here, therefore, must end the 
 TALES of your GRANDFATHER, so far as they relate to the 
 History of Scotland, considered as a distinct and separate 
 kingdom.
 
 PROGRESS OF CIVILISATION 365 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 Progress of Civilisation in Society 
 
 THE kind reception which the former Tales, written for 
 your amusement and edification, have met with, induces me, 
 my dear little boy, to make an attempt to bring down my 
 historical narrative to a period, when the union of England and 
 Scotland became as complete, in the intimacy of feelings and 
 interests, as law had declared and intended them to be, and as 
 the mutual advantage of both countries had long, though in 
 vain, required. The importance of events, however, and the 
 desire to state them clearly, have induced me for the present 
 to stop short at the period of the Union of the Kingdoms. 
 
 We left off, you may recollect, when James, the sixth of that 
 name who reigned in Scotland, succeeded, by the death of 
 Queen Elizabeth, to the throne of England, and thus became 
 sovereign of the whole island of Britain. Ireland also 
 belonged to his dominions, having been partly subdued by the 
 arms of the English, and partly surrendered to them by the 
 submission of the natives. There had been, during Elizabeth's 
 time, many wars with the native lords and chiefs of the 
 country ; but the English finally obtained the undisturbed and 
 undisputed possession of that rich and beautiful island. Thus 
 the three kingdoms, formed by the Britannic Islands, came 
 into the possession of one sovereign, who was thus fixed in a 
 situation of strength and security, which was at that time the 
 lot of few monarchs in Europe. 
 
 King James's power was the greater, that the progress of 
 human society had greatly augmented the wisdom of statesmen 
 and counsellors, and given strength and stability to those laws 
 which preserve the poor and helpless against the encroachments 
 of the wealthy and the powerful. 
 
 But Master Littlejohn may ask me what I mean by the 
 Progress of Human Society ; and it is my duty to explain it as 
 intelligibly as I can. 
 
 If you consider the lower order of animals, such as birds, 
 dogs, cattle, or any class of the brute creation, you will find that 
 they are, to every useful purpose, deprived of the means of
 
 366 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER C HAP 
 
 communicating their ideas to each other. They have cries, 
 indeed, by which they express pleasure or pain fear or hope 
 but they have no formed speech, by which, like men, 
 they can converse together. God Almighty, who called all 
 creatures into existence in such manner as best pleased him, 
 has imparted to those inferior animals no power of improving 
 their situation, or of communicating with each other. There 
 is, no doubt, a difference in the capacity of these inferior classes 
 of creation. But though one bird may build her nest more 
 neatly than one of a different class, or one dog may be more 
 clever and more capable of learning tricks than another, yet, 
 as it wants language to explain to its comrades the advantages 
 which it may possess, its knowledge dies with it ; thus birds 
 and dogs continue to use the same general habits proper to the 
 species, which they have done since the creation of the world. 
 In other words, animals have a certain limited degree of sense 
 termed instinct, which teaches the present race to seek their 
 food, and provide for their safety and comfort, in nearly the 
 same manner as their parents did before them since the begin- 
 ning of time, but does not enable them to communicate to their 
 successors any improvements, or to derive any increase of 
 knowledge from the practice of their predecessors. Thus you 
 may remark, that the example of the swallow, the wren, and 
 other birds, which cover their nests with a roof to protect them 
 against the rain, is never imitated by other classes, who con- 
 tinue to construct theirs in the same exposed and imperfect 
 manner since the beginning of the world. 
 
 Another circumstance, which is calculated to prevent the in- 
 ferior animals from rising above the rank in nature which they 
 are destined to hold, is the short time during which they 
 remain under the care of their parents. A few weeks gives the 
 young nestlings of every season strength and inclination to 
 leave the protection of the parents ; the tender attachment 
 which has subsisted while the young bird was unable to provide 
 for itself without assistance is entirely broken off, and in a 
 week or two more they probably do not know each other. The 
 young of the sheep, the cow, and the horse, attend and feed by 
 the mother's side for a certain short period, during which they 
 are protected by her care, and supported by her milk ; but they 
 have no sooner attained the strength necessary to defend them- 
 selves, and the sense to provide for their wants, than they
 
 XXXIV PROGRESS OF CIVILISATION 367 
 
 separate from the mother, and all intercourse between the 
 parent and her offspring is closed for ever. 
 
 Thus each separate tribe of animals retains exactly the same 
 station in the general order of the universe which was occupied 
 by its predecessors; and no existing generation either is, 
 or can be, much better instructed, or more ignorant than that 
 which preceded or that which is to come after it. 
 
 It is widely different with mankind. God, as we are told 
 in Scripture, was pleased to make man after his own image. 
 By this you are not to understand that the Creator of heaven 
 and earth has any visible form or shape, to which the human 
 body bears a resemblance ; but the meaning is, that as the God 
 who created the world is a spirit invisible and incomprehensible, 
 so he joined to the human frame some portion of an essence 
 resembling his own, which is called the human soul, and which, 
 while the body lives, continues to animate and direct its 
 motions, and on the dissolution of the bodily form which it has 
 occupied, returns to the spiritual world, to be answerable for 
 the good and evil of its works upon earth. It is therefore 
 impossible that man, possessing this knowledge of right and 
 wrong, proper to a spiritual essence resembling those higher 
 orders of creation whom we call angels, and having some 
 affinity, though at an incalculable distance, to the essence of the 
 Deity himself, should have been placed under the same limita- 
 tions in point of progressive improvement with the inferior 
 tribes, who are neither responsible for the actions which they 
 perform under directions of their instinct, nor capable, by any 
 exertion of their own, of altering or improving their condition 
 in the scale of creation. So far is this from being the case 
 with man, that the bodily organs of the human frame bear such 
 a correspondence with the properties of his soul, as to give him 
 the means, when they are properly used, of enlarging his 
 powers, and becoming wiser and more skilful from hour to 
 hour, as long as his life permits ; and not only is this the case, 
 but tribes and nations of men assembled together for the pur- 
 pose of mutual protection and defence, have the same power 
 of alteration and improvement, and may, if circumstances are 
 favourable, go on by gradual steps from being a wild horde 
 of naked barbarians, till they become a powerful and civilised 
 people. 
 
 The capacity of amending our condition by increase of know-
 
 368 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. 
 
 ledge, which, in fact, affords the means by which man rises to 
 be the lord of creation, is grounded on the peculiar advantages 
 possessed by the human race. Let us look somewhat closely 
 into this, my dear boy, for it involves some truths equally 
 curious and important. 
 
 If man, though possessed of the same immortal essence or 
 soul, which enables him to choose and refuse, to judge and 
 condemn, to reason and conclude, were to be without the power 
 of communicating to his fellow-men the conclusions to which 
 his reasoning had conducted him, it is clear that the progress 
 of each individual in knowledge could be only in proportion to 
 his own observation and his own powers of reasoning. But the 
 gift of speech enables any one to communicate to others what- 
 ever idea of improvement occurs to him, and thus, instead of 
 dying in the bosom of the individual by whom it was first 
 thought of, it becomes a part of the stock of knowledge proper 
 to the whole community, which is increased and rendered 
 generally and effectually useful by the accession of further in- 
 formation, as opportunities occur, or men of reflecting and in- 
 ventive minds arise in the state. This use of spoken language, 
 therefore, which so gloriously distinguishes man from the beasts 
 that perish, is the primary means of introducing and increasing 
 knowledge in infant communities. 
 
 Another early cause of the improvement in human society 
 is the incapacity of children to act for themselves, rendering 
 the attention and protection of parents to their offspring 
 necessary for so long a period. Even where the food which the 
 earth affords without cultivation, such as fruits and herbs, is 
 most plentifully supplied, children remain too helpless for many 
 years to be capable of gathering it, and providing for their own 
 support. This is still more the case where food must be pro- 
 cured by hunting, fishing, or cultivating the soil, occupations 
 requiring a degree of skill and personal strength which children 
 cannot possess until they are twelve or fourteen years old. 
 It follows, as a law of nature, that instead of leaving their 
 parents at an early age, like the young of birds or quadrupeds, 
 the youth of the human species necessarily remain under the 
 protection of their father and mother for many years, during 
 which they have time to acquire all the knowledge the parents 
 are capable of teaching. It arises also from this wise arrange- 
 ment, that the love and affection between the offspring and the
 
 XXXIV PROGRESS OF CIVILISATION 369 
 
 parents, which among the brute creation is the produce of mere 
 instinct, and continues for a very short time, becomes in the 
 human race a deep and permanent feeling, founded on the 
 attachment of the parents, the gratitude of the children, and 
 the effect of long habit on both. 
 
 For these reasons, it usually happens, that children feel no 
 desire to desert their parents, but remain inhabitants of the 
 same huts in which they were born, and take up the task of 
 labouring for subsistence in their turn, when their fathers and 
 mothers are disabled by age. One or two such families 
 gradually unite together, and avail themselves of each other's 
 company for mutual defence and assistance. This is the earliest 
 stage of human society ; and some savages have been found in 
 this condition so very rude and ignorant, that they may be 
 said to be little wiser or better than a herd of animals. The 
 natives of New South Wales, for example, are, even at present, 
 in the very lowest scale of humanity, and ignorant of every 
 art which can add comfort or decency to human life. These 
 unfortunate savages wear no clothes, construct no cabins or 
 huts, and are ignorant even of the manner of chasing animals 
 or catching fish, unless such of the latter as are left by the tide, 
 or which are found on the rocks ; they feed upon the most dis- 
 gusting substances, snakes, worms, maggots, and whatever 
 trash falls in their way. They know indeed how to kindle 
 a fire in that respect only they have stepped beyond the 
 deepest ignorance to which man can be subjected but they 
 have not learned how to boil water; and when they see 
 Europeans perform this ordinary operation, they have been 
 known to run away in great terror. Voyagers tell us of other 
 savages who are even ignorant of the use of fire, and who main- 
 tain a miserable existence by subsisting on shell-fish eaten raw. 
 
 And yet, my dear boy, out of this miserable and degraded 
 state, which seems worse than that of the animals, man has 
 the means and power to rise into the high place for which 
 Providence hath destined him. In proportion as opportunities 
 occur, these savage tribes acquire the arts of civilised life ; 
 they construct huts to shelter them against the weather ; they 
 invent arms for destroying the wild beasts by which they are 
 annoyed, and for killing those whose flesh is adapted for food ; 
 they domesticate others, and use at pleasure their milk, flesh, 
 and skins ; and they plant fruit-trees and sow grain as soon 
 
 24
 
 370 , TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. 
 
 as they discover that the productions of nature most necessary 
 for their comfort may be increased by labour and industry. 
 Thus the progress of human society, unless it is interrupted 
 by some unfortunate circumstances, continues to advance, and 
 every new generation, without losing any of the advantages 
 already attained, goes on to acquire others which were unknown 
 to the preceding one. 
 
 For instance, when three or four wandering families of 
 savages have settled in one place, and begun to cultivate the 
 ground, and collect their huts into a hamlet or village, they 
 usually agree in choosing some chief to be their judge, and 
 the arbiter of their disputes in time of peace, their leader and 
 captain when they go to war with other tribes. This is the 
 foundation of a monarchical government. Or, perhaps, their 
 public affairs are directed by a council, or senate, of the oldest 
 and wisest of the tribe this is the origin of a republican state. 
 At all events, in one way or other, they put themselves under 
 something resembling a regular government, and obtain the 
 protection of such laws as may prevent them from quarrelling 
 with one another. 
 
 Other important alterations are introduced by time. At 
 first, no doubt, the members of the community store their 
 fruits and the produce of the chase in common. But shortly 
 after, reason teaches them that the individual who has bestowed 
 labour and trouble upon anything so as to render it productive, 
 acquires a right of property, as it is called, in the produce, 
 which his efforts have in a manner called into existence. Thus 
 it is soon acknowledged, that he who has planted a tree 
 has the sole right of consuming its fruit ; and that he who has 
 sown a field of corn has the exclusive title to gather in the 
 grain. Without the labour of the planter and husbandman, 
 there would have been no apples or wheat, and therefore, these 
 are justly entitled to the fruit of their labour. In like manner, 
 the state itself is conceived to acquire a right of property in 
 the fields cultivated by its members, and in the forests and 
 waters where they have of old practised the rights of hunting 
 and fishing. If men of a different tribe enter on the territory 
 of a neighbouring nation, war ensues between them and peace 
 is made by agreeing on both sides to reasonable conditions. 
 Thus a young state extends its possessions ; and by its com- 
 munications with other tribes lays the foundation of public
 
 XXXIV PROGRESS OF CIVILISATION 371 
 
 laws for the regulation of their behaviour to each other in peace 
 and in war. 
 
 Other arrangements arise not less important, tending to 
 increase the difference between mankind in their wild and 
 original state, and that which they assume in the progress of 
 civilisation. One of the most remarkable is the separation of 
 the citizens into different classes of society, and the introduc- 
 tion of the use of money. I will try to render these great 
 changes intelligible to you. 
 
 In the earlier stages of society, every member of the com- 
 munity may be said to supply all his wants by his own personal 
 labour. He acquires his food by the chase he sows and reaps 
 his own grain he gathers his own fruit he cuts the skin 
 which forms his dress so as to fit his own person he makes 
 the sandals or buskins which protect his feet. He is, there- 
 fore, better or worse accommodated exactly in proportion to 
 the personal skill and industry which he can apply to that 
 purpose. But it is discovered in process of time, that one man 
 has particular dexterity in hunting, being, we shall suppose, 
 young, active, and enterprising ; another, older and of a more 
 staid character, has peculiar skill in tilling the ground, or in 
 managing cattle and flocks; a third, lame perhaps, or infirm, 
 has a happy talent for cutting out and stitching together 
 garments, or for shaping aud sewing shoes. It becomes, there- 
 fore, for the advantage of all, that the first man shall attend to 
 nothing but hunting, the second confine himself to the cultiva- 
 tion of the land, and the third remain at home to make clothes 
 and shoes. But then it follows as a necessary consequence, 
 that the huntsman must give to the man who cultivates the 
 land a part of his venison and skins, if he desires to have grain 
 of which to make bread, or a cow to furnish his family with 
 milk ; and that both the hunter and the agriculturist must 
 give a share of the produce of the chase, and a proportion of 
 the grain to the third man, to obtain from him clothes and 
 shoes. Each is thus accommodated with what he wants a great 
 deal better, and more easily, by every one following a separate 
 occupation, than they could possibly have been, had each of 
 the three been hunter, fanner, and tailor, in his own person, 
 practising two of the trades awkwardly and unwillingly, instead 
 of confining himself to that which he perfectly understands, 
 and pursues with success. This mode of accommodation is called
 
 372 TALKS OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. 
 
 barter, and is the earliest kind of traffic by which men ex- 
 change their property with each other and satisfy their wants 
 by parting with their superfluities. 
 
 But in process of time, barter is found inconvenient. The 
 husbandman, perhaps, has no use for shoes when the shoe- 
 maker is in need of corn, or the shoemaker may not want furs 
 or venison when the hunter desires to have shoes. To remedy 
 this, almost all nations have introduced the use of what is 
 called money ; that is to say, they have fixed on some parti- 
 cular substance capable of being divided into small portions, 
 which, having itself little intrinsic value applicable to human 
 use, is nevertheless received as a representative of the value of 
 all commodities. Particular kinds of shells are used as money 
 in some countries ; in others, leather, cloth, or iron, are em- 
 ployed; but gold and silver, divided into small portions, are 
 used for this important purpose almost all over the world. 
 
 That you may understand the use of this circulating re- 
 presentative of the value of commodities, and comprehend 
 the convenience which it affords, let us suppose that the 
 hunter, as we formerly said, wanted a pair of shoes, and the 
 shoemaker had no occasion for venison, but wanted some corn, 
 while the husbandman, not desiring to have shoes, stood in 
 need of some other commodity. Here are three men, each 
 desirous of some article of necessity, or convenience, which he 
 cannot obtain by barter, because the party whom he has to 
 deal with does not want the commodity which he has to offer 
 in exchange. But supposing the use of money introduced, and 
 its value acknowledged, these three persons are accommodated 
 by means of it in the amplest manner possible. The shoe- 
 maker does not want the venison which the hunter offers for 
 sale, but some other man in the village is willing to purchase 
 it for five pieces of silver the hunter sells his commodity, and 
 goes to the shoemaker, who, though he would not barter the 
 shoes for the venison which he did not want, readily sells them 
 for the money, and, going with it to the farmer, buys from him 
 the quantity of corn he needs ; while the farmer, in his turn, 
 purchases whatever he is in want of, or if he requires nothing 
 at the time, lays the pieces of money aside, to use when he has 
 occasion. 
 
 The invention of money is followed by the gradual rise of 
 trade. There are men who make it their business to buy
 
 XXXIV PROGRESS OF CIVILISATION 373 
 
 various articles, and sell them again for profit ; that is, they 
 sell them somewhat dearer than they bought them. This is 
 convenient for all parties; since the original proprietors are 
 willing to sell their commodities to those store -keepers, or 
 shop-keepers, at a low rate, to be saved the trouble of hawking 
 them about in search of a customer ; while the public in general 
 are equally willing to buy from such intermediate dealers, 
 because they are sure to be immediately supplied with what 
 they want. 
 
 The numerous transactions occasioned by the introduction 
 of money, together with other circumstances, soon destroy the 
 equality of ranks which prevails in an early stage of society. 
 Some men hoard up quantities of gold and silver, become rich, 
 and hire the assistance of others to do their work ; some waste 
 or spend their earnings, become poor, and sink into the capacity 
 of servants. Some men are wise and skilful, and, distinguishing 
 themselves by their exploits in battle and their counsels in 
 peace, rise to the management of public affairs. Others, and 
 much greater numbers, have no more valour than to follow 
 where they are led, and no more talent than to act as they 
 are commanded. These last sink, as a matter of course, into 
 obscurity, while the others become generals and statesmen. 
 The attainment of learning tends also to increase the difference 
 of ranks. Those who receive a good education by the care of 
 their parents, or possess so much strength of mind and readi- 
 ness of talent as to educate themselves, become separated from 
 the more ignorant of the community, and form a distinct class 
 and condition of their own ; holding no more communication 
 with the others than is absolutely necessary. 
 
 In this way the whole order of society is changed, and 
 instead of presenting the uniform appearance of one large 
 family, each member of which has nearly the same rights, it 
 seems to resemble a confederacy or association of different 
 ranks, classes, and conditions of men, each rank filling up a 
 certain department in society, and discharging a class of duties 
 totally distinct from those of the others. The steps by which 
 a nation advances from the natural and simple state which we 
 have just described, into the more complicated system in which 
 ranks are distinguished from each other, are called the progress 
 of society, or of civilisation. It is attended, like all things 
 human, with much of evil as well as good ; but it seems to be
 
 374 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. 
 
 a law of our moral nature, that, faster or slower, such altera- 
 tions must take place, in consequence of the inventions and 
 improvements of succeeding generations of mankind. 
 
 Another alteration, productive of consequences not less im- 
 portant, arises out of the gradual progress towards civilisation. 
 In the early state of society, every man in the tribe is a war- 
 rior, and liable to serve as such when the country requires his 
 assistance ; but in progress of time the pursuit of the military 
 art is, at least on all ordinary occasions, confined to bands of 
 professional soldiers, whose business it is to fight the battles of 
 the state, when required, in consideration of which they are paid 
 by the community, the other members of which are thus left 
 to the uninterrupted pursuit of their own peaceful occupations. 
 This alteration is attended with more important consequences 
 than we can at present pause to enumerate. 
 
 We have said that those mighty changes which bring men 
 to dwell in castles and cities instead of huts and caves, and 
 enable them to cultivate the sciences and subdue the elements, 
 instead of being plunged in ignorance and superstition, are owing 
 primarily to the reason with which God has graciously endowed 
 the human race ; and in a second degree to the power of 
 speech, by which we enjoy the faculty of communicating to each 
 other the result of our own reflections. 
 
 But it is evident that society, when its advance is dependent 
 upon oral tradition alone, must be liable to many interruptions. 
 The imagination of the speaker, and the dulness or want of 
 comprehension of the hearer, may lead to many errors : and it 
 is generally found that knowledge makes but very slow progress 
 until the art of writing is discovered, by which a fixed, accurate, 
 and substantial form can be given to the wisdom of past ages. 
 When this noble art is attained, there is a sure foundation laid 
 for the preservation and increase of knowledge. The record is 
 removed from the inaccurate recollection of the aged, and 
 placed in a safe, tangible, and imperishable form, which may 
 be subjected to the inspection of various persons, until the 
 sense is completely explained and comprehended, with the least 
 possible chance of doubt or uncertainty. 
 
 By the art of writing, a barrier is fixed against those violent 
 changes so apt to take place in the early stages of society, by 
 which all the fruits of knowledge are frequently destroyed, as 
 those of the earth are by a hurricane. Suppose, for example,
 
 XXXIV PROGRESS OF CIVILISATION 375 
 
 a case, which frequently happens in the early history of man- 
 kind, that some nation which has made considerable progress 
 in the arts, is invaded and subdued by another which is more 
 powerful and numerous, though more ignorant than themselves. 
 It is clear, that in this case, as the rude and ignorant victors 
 would set no value on the knowledge of the vanquished, it 
 would, if entrusted only to the memory of the individuals of 
 the conquered people, be gradually lost and forgotten. But if 
 the useful discoveries made by the ancestors of the vanquished 
 people were recorded in writing, the manuscripts in which they 
 were described, though they might be neglected for a season, 
 would, if preserved at all, probably attract attention at some 
 more fortunate period. It was thus, when the empire of Rome, 
 having reached the utmost height of its grandeur, was broken 
 down and conquered by numerous tribes of ignorant though 
 brave barbarians, that those admirable works of classical 
 learning, on which such value is justly placed in the present 
 day, were rescued from total destruction and oblivion by manu- 
 script copies preserved by chance in the old libraries of churches 
 and convents. It may indeed be taken as an almost infallible 
 maxim, that no nation can make any great progress in useful 
 knowledge or civilisation until their improvement can be 
 rendered stable and permanent by the invention of writing. 
 
 Another discovery, however, almost as important as that of 
 writing, was made during the fifteenth century. I mean the 
 invention of printing. Writing with the hand must be always 
 a slow, difficult, and expensive operation ; and when the manu- 
 script is finished, it is perhaps laid aside among the stores of 
 some great library, where it may be neglected by students, and 
 must, at any rate, be accessible to very few persons, and sub- 
 ject to be destroyed by numerous accidents. But the admirable 
 invention of printing enables the artist to make a thousand 
 copies from the original manuscript, by having them stamped 
 upon paper, in far less time and with less expense than it would 
 cost to make half a dozen such copies with the pen. From 
 the period of this glorious discovery, knowledge of every kind 
 may be said to have been brought out of the darkness of 
 cloisters and universities, where it was known only to a few 
 scholars, into the broad light of day, where its treasures were 
 accessible to all men. 
 
 The Bible itself, in which we find the rules of eternal life,
 
 376 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXIV 
 
 as well as a thousand invaluable lessons for our conduct in this 
 world, was, before the invention of printing, totally inaccessible 
 to all, save the priests of Rome, who found it their interest to 
 discourage the perusal of the Scriptures by any except their 
 own order, and thus screened from discovery those alterations 
 and corruptions, which the inventions of ignorant and designing 
 men had introduced into the beautiful simplicity of the Gospel. 
 But when, by means of printing, the copies of the Bible became 
 so numerous, that every one above the most wretched poverty 
 could, at a cheap price, possess himself of a copy of the blessed 
 rule of life, there was a general appeal from the errors and 
 encroachments of the Church of Rome, to the Divine Word on 
 which they professed to be founded ; a treasure formerly con- 
 cealed from the public, but now placed within the reach of every 
 man, whether of the clergy or laity. The consequence of these 
 inquiries, which printing alone could have rendered practicable, 
 was the rise of the happy Reformation of the Christian Church. 
 
 The same noble art made knowledge of a temporal kind as 
 accessible as that which concerned religion. Whatever works 
 of history, science, morality, or entertainment, seemed likely 
 to instruct or amuse the reader, were printed and distributed 
 among the people at large by printers and booksellers, who had 
 a profit by doing so. Thus the possibility of important 
 discoveries being forgotten in the course of years, or of the 
 destruction of useful arts, or elegant literature, by the loss of 
 the records in which they are preserved, was in a great measure 
 removed. 
 
 In a word, the printing-press is a contrivance which em- 
 powers any one individual to address his countrymen on any 
 topic which he thinks important, and which enables a whole 
 nation to listen to the voice of such individual, however obscure 
 he may be, with the same ease, and greater certainty of under- 
 standing what he says, than if a chief of Indians were haranguing 
 the tribe at his council-fire. Nor is the important difference to 
 be forgotten, that the orator can only speak to the persons 
 present, while the author of a book addresses himself, not only 
 to the race now in existence, but to all succeeding generations, 
 while his work shall be held in estimation. 
 
 I have thus endeavoured to trace the steps by which a 
 general civilisation is found to take place in nations with more 
 or less rapidity, as laws and institutions, or external circura-
 
 1603 UNION OF CROWNS 377 
 
 stances, favourable or otherwise, advance or retard the increase 
 of knowledge, and by the course of which man, endowed with 
 reason, and destined for immortality, gradually improves the 
 condition in which Providence has placed him; while the 
 inferior animals continue to live by means of the same, or 
 nearly the same, instincts of self-preservation, which have 
 directed their species in all its descents since the creation. 
 
 I have called your attention at some length to this matter, 
 because you will now have to remark that a material change 
 had gradually and slowly taken place, both in the kingdom of 
 England, and in that of Scotland, when their long quarrels 
 were at length, in appearance, ended by the accession of James 
 the Sixth of Scotland to the English crown, which he held 
 under the title of James the First of that powerful kingdom. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 Infirmities oj Elizabeth in her latter years James VI. acceptable on 
 that account to the English Resort of Scotchmen to the Court at 
 London Quarrels between them and the English 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS. France: Henry IV., Louis XIII. 
 1603 1612 
 
 THE whole island of Great Britain was now united under one 
 king, though it remained in effect two separate kingdoms, 
 governed by their own separate constitutions, and their own 
 distinct codes of laws, and liable again to be separated, as, by 
 the death of King James without issue, the kingdoms might 
 have been claimed by different heirs. For although James had 
 two sons, yet there was a possibility that they might have both 
 died before their father, in which case the sceptres of England 
 and Scotland must have passed once more into different hands. 
 The Hamilton family would, in that case, have succeeded to 
 the kingdom of Scotland, and the next heir of Elizabeth to that 
 of England, Who that heir was, it might have been found 
 difficult to determine. 
 
 It was in these circumstances to be apprehended, that 
 James, the sovereign of a poor and barren kingdom, which had
 
 378 TALES OF A GRANDFATII KR CHAr. XXXV 
 
 for 80 many ages maintained an almost perpetual war with 
 England, would have met with a prejudiced and unpleasant 
 reception from a nation long accustomed to despise the Scotch 
 for their poverty, and to regard them with enmity on account 
 of their constant hostility to the English blood and name. It 
 might have been supposed also, that a people so proud as the 
 English, and having so many justifiable reasons for their pride, 
 would have regarded with an evil eye the transference of the 
 sceptre from the hand of the Tudors, who had swayed it during 
 five successive reigns, to those of a Stewart, descended from the 
 ancient and determined enemies of the English nation. But it 
 was the wise and gracious pleasure of Providence, that while 
 so many reasons existed to render the accession of James, and, 
 in consequence, the union of the two crowns, obnoxious to the 
 English people, others should occur, which not only balanced, 
 but for a time completely overpowered those objections, as well 
 in the minds of men of sense and education, as in the judgment 
 of the populace, who are usually averse to foreign rulers, for no 
 other reason than that they are such. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth, after a long and glorious reign, had, in 
 her latter days, become much more cross and uncertain in her 
 temper than had been the case in her youth, more wilful also, 
 and more inclined to exert her arbitrary power on slight 
 occasions. One peculiar cause of offence given to her people 
 was her obstinate refusal to gratify their anxiety, by making, 
 as the nation earnestly desired, some arrangement for the 
 succession to the throne after her own death. On this subject, 
 indeed, she nursed so much suspicion and jealousy, as gave rise 
 to more than one extraordinary scene. The following is a 
 whimsical instance, among others, of her unwillingness to hear 
 of anything respecting old age and its consequences. 
 
 The Bishop of St. David's, preaching in her Majesty's 
 presence, took occasion from his text, which was Psalm xc. v. 
 12, "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our 
 hearts unto wisdom," to allude to the Queen's advanced period 
 of life, she being then sixty-three, and to the consequent in- 
 firmities attending upon old age; as, for example, when the 
 grinders shall be few in number, and they wax dark who look 
 out at windows when the daughters of singing shall be abased, 
 and more to the like purpose. With the tone of these admoni- 
 tions the Queen was so ill satisfied, that she flung open the
 
 1603 TEMPER OF ELIZABETH 379 
 
 window of the closet in which she sat, and told the preacher 
 to keep his admonitions to himself, since she plainly saw the 
 greatest clerks (meaning scholars) were not the wisest men. 
 Nor did her displeasure end here. The Bishop was commanded 
 to confine himself to his house for a time, and the Queen, 
 referring to the circumstance some time afterwards, told her 
 courtiers how much the prelate was mistaken in supposing her 
 to be as much decayed as perhaps he might feel himself to be. 
 As for her, she thanked God, neither her stomach nor her 
 strength her voice for singing, nor her art of fingering instru- 
 ments, were any whit decayed. And to prove the goodness of 
 her eyes, she produced a little jewel, with an inscription in very 
 small letters, which she offered to Lord Worcester and Sir 
 James Crofts to read. They had too much tact to be sharp- 
 sighted on the occasion ; she, therefore, read it herself with 
 apparent ease, and laughed at the error of the good Bishop. 
 
 The faults of Elizabeth, though arising chiefly from age and 
 ill-temper, were noticed and resented by her subjects, who 
 began openly to show themselves weary of a female reign, for- 
 getting how glorious it had been, and manifested a general 
 desire to have a king to rule over them. With this almost 
 universal feeling, all eyes, even those of Elizabeth's most con- 
 fidential statesman and counsellor, Sir Robert Cecil, afterwards 
 Earl of Salisbury, were turned to the King of Scotland as next 
 heir to the crown. He was a Protestant prince, which assured 
 him the favour of the Church of England, and of the numerous 
 and strong adherents to the Protestant religion. As such, 
 Cecil entered into a secret correspondence with him, in which 
 he pointed out the line of conduct proper on James's part to 
 secure his interest in England. On the other hand, the English 
 Catholics, on whom Queen Elizabeth's government had imposed 
 many severe penal laws, were equally friendly to the succession 
 of King James, since from that prince, whose mother had been 
 a strict Catholic, they might hope for favour, to the extent at 
 least of some release from the various hardships which the laws 
 of England imposed on them. The Earl of Northumberland 
 conducted a correspondence with James on the part of the 
 Catholics, in which he held high language, and offered to assert 
 the Scottish King's right of succession by force of arms. 
 
 These intrigues were kept by James as secret as was in his 
 power. If Elizabeth had discovered either the one or the other,
 
 380 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXV 
 
 neither the services of Cecil, nor the high birth and power of 
 the great Earl of Northumberland, could have saved them, 
 from experiencing the extremity of her indignation. Cecil, in 
 particular, was at one time on the point of ruin. A post from 
 Scotland delivered into his hands a private packet from the 
 Scottish King, when the secretary was in attendance on Eliza- 
 beth. " Open your despatches," said Elizabeth, " and let us 
 hear the news from Scotland." A man of less presence of mind 
 would have been ruined ; for if the Queen had seen the least 
 hesitation in her minister's manner, her suspicions would have 
 been instantly awakened, and detection must have followed. 
 But Cecil recollected the Queen's sensitive aversion to any dis- 
 agreeable smell, which was strengthened by the belief of the 
 time, that infectious diseases and subtile poisons could be com- 
 municated by means of scent alone. The artful secretary availed 
 himself of this, and while he seemed to be cutting the strings 
 which held the packet, he observed it had a singular and un- 
 pleasant odour ; on which Elizabeth desired it might be taken 
 from her presence, and opened elsewhere with due precaution. 
 Thus Cecil got an opportunity to withdraw from the packet 
 whatever could have betrayed his correspondence with King 
 James. Cecil's policy and inclinations were very generally 
 followed in the English court ; indeed, there appeared no heir 
 to the crown, male or female, whose right could be placed in 
 competition with that of James. 
 
 It may be added to this general inclination in James's 
 favour, that the defects of his character were of a kind which 
 did not attract much attention while he occupied the throne of 
 Scotland. The delicacy of his situation was then so great, and 
 he was exposed to so many dangers from the dislike of the 
 clergy, the feuds of the nobles, and the tumultuous disposition 
 of the common people, that he dared not indulge in any of 
 those childish freaks of which he was found capable when his 
 motions were more completely at his own disposal. On the 
 contrary, he was compelled to seek out the sagcst counsellors, 
 to listen to the wisest advice, and to put a restraint on his own 
 natural disposition for encouraging idle favourites, parasites, 
 and flatterers, as well as to suppress his inward desire to extend 
 the limits of his authority farther than the constitution of the 
 country permitted. 
 
 At this period James governed by the advice of such
 
 1603 JAMES VI. 'S RECEPTION 381 
 
 ministers &* the Chancellor Maitland, and afterwards of Home, 
 Earl of Dunbar, men of thought aiid action, of whose steady 
 measures and prudent laws the King naturally obtained the 
 credit. Neither was James himself deficient in a certain degree 
 of sagacity. He possessed all that could be derived from 
 learning alloyed by pedantry, and from a natural shrewdness of 
 wit, which enabled him to play the part of a man of sense, 
 when either acting under the influence of constraint and fear, 
 or where no temptation occurred to induce him to be guilty of 
 some folly. It was by these specious accomplishments that 
 he acquired in his youth the character of an able and wise 
 monarch, although when he was afterwards brought on a more 
 conspicuous stage, and his character better understood, he was 
 found entitled to no better epithet than that conferred on him 
 by an able French politician, who called him, " The wisest fool 
 in Christendom." 
 
 Such, however, as King James was, England now received 
 him with more universal acclamation than had attended any of 
 her princes on their ascent to the throne. Multitudes, of every 
 description, hastened to accompany him on his journey through 
 England to the capital city. The wealthy placed their gold at 
 his disposal, the powerful opened their halls for the most 
 magnificent entertainments, the clergy hailed him as the head 
 of the Church, and the poor, who had nothing to offer but their 
 lives, seemed ready to devote them to his service. Some of the 
 Scottish retinue, who were acquainted with James's character, 
 saw and feared the unfavourable effect which such a change 
 of circumstances was likely to work on him. "A plague of 
 these people!" said one of his oldest domestics; "they will 
 spoil a good king." 
 
 Another Scot made an equally shrewd answer to an English- 
 man, who desired to know from him the King's real character. 
 " Did you ever see a jackanapes V said the Scotchman, meaning 
 a tame monkey ; " if you have, you must be aware that if you 
 hold the creature in your hands you can make him bite me, and 
 if I hold him in my hands, I can make him bite you." 
 
 Both these sayings were shown to be true in course of time. 
 King James, brought from poverty to wealth, became thought- 
 less and prodigal, indolent, and addicted to idle pleasures. 
 From hearing the smooth flatteries of the clergy of England, 
 who recognised him as head of the Church, instead of the rude
 
 382 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXV 
 
 attacks of the Presbyterian ministers of Scotland, who had 
 hardly admitted his claim to be one of its inferior members, he en- 
 tertained new and more lofty pretensions to divine right. Finally^ 
 brought from a country where his personal liberty and the 
 freedom of his government were frequently placed under restraint, 
 and his life sometimes in danger, he was overjoyed to find 
 himself in a condition where his own will was not only un- 
 fettered, as far as he himself was concerned, but appeared to 
 be the model by which all loyal subjects were desirous to ac- 
 commodate theirs ; and he seemed readily enough disposed to 
 stretch to its utmost limits the power thus presented to him. 
 Thus, from being a just and equitable monarch, he was inspired 
 with a love of arbitrary power ; and from attending, as had 
 been his custom, to state business, he now minded little save 
 hunting and festivals. 
 
 In this manner James, though possessing a large stock of 
 pedantic wisdom, came to place himself under the management 
 of a succession of unworthy favourites, and although particularly 
 good-natured, and naturally a lover of justice, was often hurried 
 into actions and measures, which, if they could not be termed 
 absolutely tyrannical, were nevertheless illegal and unjust. It 
 is, however, of his Scottish government that we are now to 
 treat, and therefore I am to explain to you, as well as I can, 
 the consequences of the union with England to the people and 
 country of Scotland. 
 
 If the English nation were at first delighted to receive King 
 James as their sovereign, the Scottish people were no less en- 
 chanted by the prospect of their monarch's ascent to this 
 wealthy and pre-eminent situation. They considered the pro- 
 motion of their countrymen and prince as an omen of good 
 fortune to their nation ; each individual Scotchman expected 
 to secure some part of the good things with which England was 
 supposed to abound, and multitudes hurried to court, to put 
 themselves in the way of obtaining their share. 
 
 James was shocked at the greediness and importunity of his 
 hungry countrymen, and scandalised besides at the poor and 
 miserable appearance which many of them made among the 
 rich Englishmen, which brought discredit on the country to 
 which he himself, as well as they, belonged. He sent in- 
 structions to the Scottish Privy Council to prevent such 
 intruders from leaving their country, complaining of their
 
 1 603-5 SCOTS IN LONDON 383 
 
 manners and appearance, as calculated to bring disgrace upon 
 all the natives of Scotland. A proclamation was accordingly 
 issued at Edinburgh, setting forth that great numbers of men 
 and women of base sort and condition, and without any certain 
 trade, calling, or dependence, repaired from Scotland to court, 
 which was almost filled with them, to the great annoyance of 
 his Majesty, and to the heavy disgrace of the Scottish nation ; 
 for these suitors being, in the judgment of all who saw them, 
 but " idle rascals, and poor miserable bodies," their importunity 
 and numbers raised an opinion that there were no persons 
 of good rank, comeliness, or credit in the country which sent 
 forth such a flight of locusts. Further, it was complained that 
 these unseemly supplicants usually alleged that the cause of 
 their repairing to court was to desire payment of old debts due 
 by the King, "which, of all kinds of importunity," says the 
 proclamation, with great simplicity, "is the most unpleasing 
 to his Majesty." Therefore, general proclamation was directed 
 to be made at all the market crosses in Scotland, that no 
 Scottish person should be permitted to travel to England with- 
 out leave of the Privy Council ; and that vessels transporting 
 individuals, who had not obtained due license, should be liable 
 to confiscation. 
 
 But although the King did all that was in his power to 
 prevent these uncouth suitors from repairing to his court, yet 
 there were many other natives of Scotland of a higher descrip- 
 tion, the sons of men of rank and quality, who, by birth and 
 condition, had the right of attending his court, and approaching 
 his presence, whom he could not prohibit from doing so, without 
 positively disowning all former affections, national feeling, and 
 sympathy or gratitude for past services. The benefits which 
 he conferred on these were ill construed by the English, who 
 seem to have accounted everything as taken from themselves 
 which was bestowed on a Scotchman. The King, though it 
 does not appear that he acted with any unjust purpose, was 
 severely judged, both by his own countrymen and the English. 
 The Scots, who had been his friends in his inferior situation, 
 and, as it might be called, his adversity, naturally expected 
 a share of his bounty, when he was advanced to such high 
 prosperity ; while the English, with a jealousy for which much 
 allowance is also to be made, regarded these northern suitors 
 with an evil eye. In short, the Scottish courtiers thought
 
 384 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXV 
 
 that their claims of ancient services, of allegiance tried under 
 difficult circumstances, of favour due to countrymen, and 
 perhaps even to kindred, which no people cany so far, entitled 
 them to all the advantages which the King might have to 
 bestow; while the English, on the other hand, considered 
 everything given to the Scots as conferred at their expense, 
 and used many rhymes and satirical expressions to that purpose, 
 such as occur in the old song : 
 
 Bonny Scot, all witness can, 
 England has made thee a gentleman. 
 Thy blue bonnet, when thou came hither, 
 Would scarcely keep out the wind or weather ; 
 But now it is turn'd to a hat and a feather 
 The bonnet is blown the devil knows whither. 
 The sword at thy haunch was a huge black blade, 
 With a great basket-hilt, of iron made ; 
 But now a long rapier doth hang by his side, 
 And huffingly doth this bonny Scot ride. 
 
 Another rhyme, to the same purpose, described a Scottish 
 courtier thus : 
 
 In Scotland he was born and bred, 
 
 And, though a beggar, must be fed. 
 
 It Is said, that when the Scots complained to the King of this 
 last aspersion, James replied, "Hold your peace, for I will 
 soon make the English as poor as yourselves, and so end that 
 controversy." But as it was not in the power of wit to appease 
 the feud betwixt the nobility and gentry of two proud nations, 
 so lately enemies, all the efforts of the King were unequal to 
 prevent bloody and desperate quarrels between his countrymen 
 and his new subjects, to the great disquiet of the court, and 
 the distress of the good-natured monarch, who, averse to war 
 in all its shapes, and even to the sight of a drawn sword, 
 suffered grievously on such occasions. 
 
 There was one of those incidents which assumed a character 
 so formidable, that it threatened the destruction of all the 
 Scots at the court and in the capital, and, in consequence, a 
 breach between the kingdoms so lately and happily brought 
 into alliance. At a public horse-race at Croydon, Philip 
 Herbert, an Englishman of high birth, though, as it fortunately 
 chanced, of no degree of corresponding spirit, received, in a
 
 ibos-12 SCOTS IN LONDON 385 
 
 quarrel, a blow in the face by a switch or horse- whip,. from one 
 Ramsay, a Scottish gentleman, in attendance on the court. 
 The rashness and violence of Ramsay was construed into a 
 national point of quarrel by the English present, who proposed 
 revenging themselves on the spot by a general attack upon all 
 the Scots on the race-ground. One gentleman, named Pinch- 
 beck, although ill-fitted for such a strife, for he had but the 
 use of two fingers on his right hand, rode furiously through 
 the multitude, with his dagger ready drawn, exhorting all the 
 English to imitate him in an immediate attack on the Scots, 
 exclaiming, "Let us breakfast with those that are here, and 
 dine with the rest in London." But as Herbert did not return 
 the blow, no scuffle or assault actually took place ; otherwise, 
 it is probable, a dreadful scene must have ensued. James, 
 with whom Herbert was a particular favourite, rewarded his 
 moderation or timidity by raising him to the rank of Knight, 
 Baron, Viscount, and Earl of Montgomery, all in one day. 
 Ramsay was banished the court for a season; and thus the 
 immediate affront was in some degree alleviated. But the 
 new Earl of Montgomery remained, in the opinion of his 
 countrymen, a dishonoured man ; and it is said his mother, the 
 sister of Sir Philip Sydney, wept and tore her hair when she 
 heard of his having endured with patience the insult offered 
 by Ramsay. This is the lady whom, in a beautiful epitaph, 
 Ben Jonson has described as 
 
 Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother ; 
 Death, ere thon hast slain another 
 Wise, and good, and learned as she, 
 Time shall throw a dart at thee. 
 
 Yet the patience of Herbert under the insult was the 
 fortunate prevention of a great national misfortune, for which, 
 if his after conduct had not given tokens of an abject spirit, he 
 might have been praised as a patriot, who had preferred the 
 good of his country to the gratification of his own immediate 
 resentment. 
 
 Another offence given by the haughty and irascible temper 
 of a Scotchman, was also likely to have produced disastrous 
 consequences. The Inns of Court are the places of resort and 
 study appointed for those young men who are destined to the 
 profession of the law in England, and they are filled with 
 
 25
 
 386 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXV 
 
 students, men ofteu of high family and accomplishments, and 
 who, living together in the sort of colleges set apart for their 
 residence, have always kept up the ideas of privilege and dis- 
 tinction, to which their destination to a highly honourable 
 profession, as well as their own birth and condition, entitles 
 them. One of these gentlemen, by name Edward Hawley, 
 appeared at court on a public occasion, and probably intruded 
 farther than his rank authorised ; so that Maxwell, a Scotch- 
 man, much favoured by James, and an usher of his chamber, 
 not only thrust him back, but actually pulled him out of the 
 presence-chamber by a black ribband, which, like other gallants 
 of the time, Hawley wore at his ear. Hawley, who was a man 
 of spirit, instantly challenged Maxwell to fight ; and his second, 
 who carried the challenge, informed him, that if he declined 
 such meeting, Hawley would assault him wherever they should 
 meet, and either kill him or be killed on the spot. James, by 
 his royal interference, was able to solder up this quarrel also. 
 He compelled Maxwell to make an apology to Hawley; and 
 for the more full accommodation of the dispute, accepted of a 
 splendid masque and entertainment offered on the occasion by 
 the students of Gray's Inn Lane, the society to which the 
 injured gentleman belonged. 
 
 We may here remark a great change in the manners of the 
 gallants of the time, which had taken place in the progress of 
 civilisation, to which I formerly alluded. The ancient practice 
 of trial by combat, which made a principal part of the feudal 
 law, and which was resorted to in so many cases, had now fallen 
 into disuse. The progress of reason, and the principles of 
 justice, concurred to prove that a combat in the lists might in- 
 deed show which of two knights was the best rider and the 
 stoutest swordsman, but that such an encounter could afford 
 no evidence which of the two was innocent or guilty ; since it 
 can only be believed in a very ignorant age that Providence is 
 to work a miracle in case of every chance combat, and award 
 success to the party whose virtue best deserves it. The trial 
 by combat, therefore, though it was not actually removed from 
 the statute-book, was in fact only once appealed to after the ac- 
 cession of James, and even then the combat, as a mode of trial 
 unsuited to enlightened times, did not take place. 
 
 For the same reason the other sovereigns of Europe dis- 
 countenanced these challenges and combats, undertaken for pure
 
 1605-12 DUELLING 387 
 
 honour or in revenge of some injury, which it used to be their 
 custom to encourage, and to sanction with their own presence. 
 Such rencounters were now generally looked upon by all sen- 
 sible persons as an inexcusable waste of gallant men's lives for 
 matters of mere punctilio ; and were strictly forbidden, under 
 the highest penalties, by the Kings both of England and 
 France, and, generally speaking, throughout the civilised world. 
 But the royal command could not change the hearts of those 
 to whom it was addressed, nor could the penalties annexed to 
 the breach of the law intimidate men, whom a sense of honour, 
 though a false one, had already induced to hold life cheap. 
 Men fought as many, perhaps even more, single combats than 
 formerly ; and although such meetings took place without the 
 publicity and formal show of lists, armour, horses, and the at- 
 tendance of heralds and judges of the field, yet they were not 
 less bloody than those which had been formerly fought with 
 the observance of every point of chivalry. 1 
 
 According to the more modern practice, combatants met in 
 some solitary place, alone, or each accompanied by a single 
 friend called a second, who were supposed to see fair play. 
 The combat was generally fought with the rapier or small 
 sword, a peculiarly deadly weapon, and the combatants, to 
 show they wore no defensive armour under their clothes, 
 threw off their coats and waistcoats, and fought in their shirts. 
 The duty of the seconds, properly interpreted, was only to 
 see fair play ; but as these hot-spirited young men felt it diffi- 
 cult to remain cool and inactive when they saw their friends 
 engaged, it was very common for them, though without even 
 
 1 " Lady Mary Wortley Montague has said, with equal truth and taste, 
 that the most romantic region of every country is that where the moun- 
 tains unite themselves with the plains or lowlands. For similar reasons, 
 it may be in like manner said, that the most picturesque period of history 
 is that when the ancient rough and wild manners of a barbarous age are 
 just becoming innovated upon, and contrasted by, the illumination of in- 
 creased or revived learning, and the instructions of renewed or reformed 
 religion. The reign 1 of James I. of England possessed this advantage in a 
 peculiar degree. Some beams of chivalry, although its planet had been 
 for some time set, continued to animate and gild the horizon ; and 
 although probably no one acted precisely on its Quixotic dictates, men and 
 women still talked the chivalrous language of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia ; 
 and the ceremonial of the tilt-yard was yet exhibited, though it now only 
 nourished as a Place de Carrousel." Introduction to the- Fortunes of Nigel. 
 ( Waverley Novels. )
 
 388 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXV 
 
 the shadow of a quarrel, to fight also ; and, in that case, who- 
 ever first despatched his antagonist, or rendered him incapable 
 of further resistance, came without hesitation to the assistance 
 of his comrade, and thus the decisive superiority was brought 
 on by odds of numbers, which contradicts all our modern ideas 
 of honour or of gallantry. 
 
 Such were the rules of the duel, as these single combats 
 were called. The fashion came from France to England, and 
 was adopted by the Scots and English as the readiest way of 
 settling their national quarrels, which became very numerous. 
 
 One of the most noted of these was the bloody and fatal 
 conflict between Sir James Stewart, eldest son of the first 
 Lord Blantyre, a Scottish Knight of the Bath, and Sir George 
 Wharton, an Englishman, eldest son of Lord Wharton, a 
 Knight of the same order. These gentlemen were friends; 
 and, if family report speaks truth, Sir James Stewart was one 
 of the most accomplished young men of his time. A trifling 
 dispute at play led to uncivil expressions on the part of Whar- 
 ton, to which Stewart answered by a blow. A defiance was 
 exchanged on the spot, and they resolved to fight next day at 
 an appointed place near Waltham. This fatal appointment 
 made, they carried their resentment with a show of friendship, 
 and drank some wine together ; after finishing which, Wharton 
 observed to his opponent, " Our next meeting will not part 
 so easily." The fatal rencounter took place; both gentlemen 
 fought with the most determined courage, and both fell with 
 many wounds, and died on the field of battle. 
 
 Sometimes the rage and passion of the gallants of the day 
 did not take the fairest, but the shortest, road to revenge ; and 
 the courtiers of James I., men of honourable birth and title, 
 were, in some instances, known to attack an enemy by sur- 
 prise, without regard to the previous appointment of a place 
 of meeting, or any regulation as to the number of the com- 
 batants. Nay, it seems as if, on occasions of special pro- 
 vocation, the English did not disdain to use the swords of 
 hired assassins in aid of their revenge, and all punctilios of 
 equality of arms or numbers were set aside as idle ceremonies. 
 
 Sir John Ayres, a man of rank and fortune, entertained 
 jealousy of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, celebrated as a soldier 
 and philosopher, from having discovered that his wife, Lady 
 Ayres, wore around her neck the picture of that high-spirited
 
 1605-12 ASSASSINATIONS 389 
 
 and accomplished nobleman. Incensed by the suspicions thus 
 excited, Sir John watched Lord Herbert, and, meeting him on 
 his return from court, attended by only two servants, he 
 attacked him furiously, backed by four of his followers with 
 drawn weapons, and accompanied by many others, who, though 
 they did not directly unsheath their swords, yet served to lend 
 countenance to the assault. Lord Herbert was thrown down 
 under his horse; his sword, with which he endeavoured to 
 defend himself, was broken in his hand ; and the weight of the 
 horse prevented him from rising. One of his lacqueys ran 
 away on seeing his master attacked by such odds ; the other 
 stood by him, and released his foot, which was entangled in 
 the stirrup. At this moment Sir John Ayres was standing 
 over him, and in the act of attempting to plunge his sword 
 into his body ; but Lord Herbert, catching him by the legs, 
 brought him also to the ground ; and, although the young lord 
 had but a fragment of his sword remaining, he struck his 
 unmanly antagonist on the stomach with such force as deprived 
 him of the power to prosecute his bloody purpose ; and some 
 of Lord Herbert's friends coming up, the assassin thought it 
 prudent to withdraw, vomiting blood in consequence of the 
 blow he had received. 
 
 This scuffle lasted for some time in the streets of London, 
 without any person feeling himself called upon to interfere in 
 behalf of the weaker party ; and Sir John Ayres seems to have 
 entertained no shame for the enterprise, but only regret that 
 it had not succeeded. Lord Herbert sent him a challenge as 
 soon as his wounds were in the way of being cured ; and the 
 gentleman who bore it, placed the letter on the point of his 
 sword, and in that manner delivered it publicly to the person 
 whom he addressed. Sir John Ayres replied, that the injury 
 he had received from Lord Herbert was of such a nature, that 
 he would not consent to any terms of fair play, but would shoot 
 him from a window with a musket, if he could find an oppor- 
 tunity. Lord Herbert protests, in his Memoirs, that there was 
 no cause given on his part for the jealousy which drove Sir 
 John Ayres to such desperate measures of revenge. 
 
 A still more noted case of cruel vengeance, and which served 
 to embitter the general hatred against the Scots, was a crime 
 committed by Lord Sanquhar, a nobleman of that country, 
 the representative of the ancient family of Creichton. This
 
 390 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXV 
 
 young lord, in fencing with a man called Turner, a teacher of 
 the science of defence, had the misfortune to be deprived of an 
 eye by the accidental thrust of a foil The mishap was doubt- 
 less both distressing and provoking ; but there was no room to 
 blame Turner, by whom no injury had been intended, and who 
 greatly regretted the accident. One or two years after this, 
 Lord Sanquhar being at the court of France, Henry IV., then 
 King, asked him how he had lost his eye. Lord Sanquhar, not 
 wishing to dwell on the subject, answered in general terms, 
 that it was by the thrust of a sword. " Does the man who 
 did the injury still live 1 " asked the King ; and the unhappy 
 question impressed it indelibly upon .the heart of the infatuated 
 Lord Sanquhar that his honour required the death of the poor 
 fencing -master. Accordingly, he despatched his page, and 
 another of his followers, who pistolled Turner in his own 
 school The murderers were taken, and acknowledged they 
 had been employed to do the deed by their lord, whose 
 commands, they said, they had been bred up to hold as indis- 
 putable warrants for the execution of whatever he might enjoin. 
 All the culprits being brought to trial and condemned, much 
 interest was made for Lord Sanquhar, who was a young man, 
 it is said, of eminent parts. But to have pardoned him would 
 have argued too gross a partiality in James towards his country- 
 men and original subjects. He was hanged, therefore, along 
 with his two associates ; which Lord Bacon termed the most 
 exemplary piece of justice in any kinj's reign. 
 
 To sum up the account of these acts of violence, they gave 
 occasion to a severe law, called the statute of stabbing. 
 Hitherto, in the mild spirit of English jurisprudence, the crime 
 of a person slaying another without premeditation only amounted 
 to the lesser denomination of murder which the law calls man- 
 slaughter, and which had been only punishable by fine and 
 imprisonment. But, to check the use of short swords and 
 poniards, weapons easily concealed, and capable of being 
 suddenly produced, it was provided, that if any one, though 
 without forethought or premeditation, with sword or dagger, 
 attacked and wounded another whose weapon was not drawn, 
 of which wound the party should die within six months after 
 receiving it, the crime should not be accounted homicide, but 
 rise into the higher class of murder, and be as such punished 
 with death accordingly.
 
 1612-18 STATE OF ENGLAND 391 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 Attempt of James to reduce the Institutions of Scotland to a state of Uni- 
 formity with those of England Introduction of Episcopacy into the 
 Scottish Church Five Articles of Perth Dissatisfaction of the 
 People 
 
 SOVEREIGN OF FRANCE. Louis XIII. 
 16121618 
 
 WHILE the quarrels of the English and Scottish nobility dis- 
 turbed the comfort of James the First's reign, it must be 
 admitted that the monarch applied himself with some diligence 
 to cement as much as possible the union of the two kingdoms, 
 and to impart to each such advantages as they might be found 
 capable of borrowing from the other. The love of power, natural 
 to him as a sovereign, combined with a sincere wish for what 
 would be most advantageous to both countries for James, 
 when not carried off by his love of idle pleasures, and the in- 
 fluence of unworthy favourites, possessed the power of seeing, 
 and the disposition to advance, the interests of his subjects 
 alike induced him to accelerate, by every means, the uniting 
 the two separate portions of Britain into one solid and insepar- 
 able state, for which nature designed the inhabitants of the 
 same island. He was not negligent in adopting measures to 
 attain so desirable an object, though circumstances deferred the 
 accomplishment of his wishes till the lapse of a century. To 
 explain the nature of his attempt, and the causes of its failure, 
 we must consider the respective condition of England and 
 Scotland as regarded their political institutions. 
 
 The long and bloody wars between the houses of York and 
 Lancaster, who, for more than thirty years, contended for the 
 throne of England, had, by slaughter in numerous battles, by 
 repeated proscriptions, public executions, and forfeitures, reduced 
 to a comparatively inconsiderable number, and to a much 
 greater state of disability and weakness, the nobility and great 
 gentiy of the kingdom, by whom the crown had been alternately 
 bestowed on one or other of the contending parties. Henry 
 the Seventh, a wise and subtle prince, had, by his success in
 
 392 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXVl 
 
 the decisive battle of Bosworth, attained a secure seat upon 
 the English throne. He availed himself of the weak state of 
 the peers and barons, and the rising power of the cities and 
 boroughs, to undermine and destroy the influence which the 
 feudal system had formerly given to the aristocracy over their 
 vassals ; and they submitted to this diminution of their 
 authority, as men who felt that the stormy independence 
 possessed by their ancestors had cost them very dear, and that 
 it was better to live at ease under the King, as a common head of 
 the state, than to possess, each on his own domains, the ruinous 
 power of petty sovereigns, making war upon, and ruining others, 
 and incurring destruction themselves. They therefore relin- 
 quished, without much open discontent, most of their oppressive 
 rights of sovereignty over their vassals, and were satisfied to 
 be honoured and respected masters of their own lands, without 
 retaining the power of princes over those who cultivated them. 
 They exacted rents from their tenants instead of service in battle, 
 and attendance in peace, and became peaceful and wealthy, 
 instead of being great and turbulent 
 
 Aa the nobles sunk in political consideration, the citizens of 
 the towns and seaports, and the smaller gentry and cultivators 
 of the soil, increased in importance as well as in prosperity and 
 happiness. These commoners felt, indeed, and sometimes mur- 
 mured against, the ascendance acquired by the King, but were 
 conscious, at the same time, that it was the power of the crown 
 which had relieved them from the far more vexatious and fre- 
 quent exactions of their late feudal lords ; and as the burden 
 fell equally on all, they were better contented to live under the 
 sway of one king, who imposed the national burdens on the 
 people at large, than under that of a number of proud lords. 
 Henry VII. availed himself of these favourable dispositions, to 
 raise large taxes, which he partly hoarded up for occasions of 
 emergency, and partly expended on levying bands of soldiers, 
 both foreign and domestic, by whom he carried on such wars as 
 he engaged in, without finding any necessity to call out the 
 feudal array of the kingdom. In this manner he avoided 
 rendering himself dependent on his nobles. 
 
 Henry VIII. was a prince of a very different temper, and 
 yet his reign contributed greatly to extend and confirm the 
 power of the English crown. He expended, indeed, lavishly, 
 the treasures of his father; but he replenished them, in a
 
 I6i2-i8 STATE OF ENGLAND 393 
 
 great measure, by the spoils of the Roman Catholic Church, 
 and he confirmed the usurpation of arbitrary authority, by the 
 vigour with which he wielded it. The tyranny which he exer- 
 cised in his family and court, was unfelt by the citizens and 
 common people, with whom he continued to be rather popular 
 from his splendour, than dreaded for his violence. His 
 power wrested from them, in the shape of compulsory loans and 
 benevolences, large sums of money which he was not entitled 
 to by the grant of Parliament; but though he could not 
 directly compel them to pay such exactions, yet he could exert, 
 as in the case of Alderman Read, 1 the power of sending the 
 refusing party to undergo the dangers and hardships of foreign 
 service, which most wealthy citizens thought still harder than 
 the alternative of paying a sum of money. 
 
 The reign of the English Queen Mary was short and in- 
 glorious, but she pursued the arbitrary steps of her father, and 
 in no degree relaxed the power which the crown had acquired 
 since the accession of Henry VII. That of Elizabeth tended 
 considerably to increase it. The success of the wise measures 
 which she adopted for maintaining the Protestant religion, and 
 making the power of England respected by foreign states, 
 flattered the vanity, and conciliated the affection, of her sub- 
 jects. The wisdom and economy with which she distributed 
 the treasures of the state, added to the general disposition of 
 her subjects to place them at her command ; and the arbitrary 
 authority which her grandfather acquired by subtlety, which 
 her father maintained by violence, and which her sister pre- 
 served by bigotry, was readily conceded to Elizabeth by the 
 love and esteem of her people. It was, moreover, to be con- 
 sidered, that, like the rest of the Tudor family, the Queen 
 nourished high ideas of royal prerogative ; and, when thwarted 
 in her wishes by any opposition, not unfrequeutly called to 
 lively recollection, both by expression and action, whose 
 daughter she was. 
 
 In a word, the almost absolute authority of the House of 
 Tudor may be understood from the single circumstance, that 
 although religion is the point on which men do, aud ought to 
 think their individual feelings and sentiments especially at 
 liberty, yet, at the arbitrary will of the sovereign, the Church 
 of England was disjoined from that of Rome by Henry the 
 1 See ante, p. 275.
 
 394 TALES OP A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXVl 
 
 Eighth, was restored to the Roman Catholic faith by Queen 
 Mary, and again declared Protestant by Elizabeth; and on 
 each occasion the change was effected without any commotion 
 or resistance, beyond such temporary tumults as were soon put 
 down by the power of the crown. 
 
 Thus, on succeeding to the English throne, James found 
 himself at the head of a nobility who had lost both the habit 
 and power of contesting the pleasure of the sovereign, and of 
 a wealthy body of commons, who, satisfied with being liberated 
 from the power of the aristocracy, were little disposed to resist 
 the exactions of the crown. 
 
 His ancient kingdom of Scotland was quite differently 
 situated. The feudal nobility had retained their territorial 
 jurisdictions, and their signorial privileges, in as full extent as 
 their ancestors had possessed them, and therefore had at once 
 the power and the inclination to resist the arbitrary will of the 
 sovereign, as James himself had felt on more occasions than 
 one. Thus, though the body of the Scottish people had not 
 the same protection from just and equal laws, as was the happy 
 lot of the inhabitants of England, and were much less wealthy 
 and independent, yet the spirit of the constitution possessed 
 all the freedom which was inherent in the ancient feudal 
 institutions, and it was impossible for the monarch of Scotland 
 so to influence the parliament of the country, as to accomplish 
 any considerable encroachment on the privileges of the nation. 
 
 It was therefore obvious, that besides the numerous reasons 
 of a public nature for uniting South and North Britain under 
 a similar system of government, James saw a strong personal 
 interest for reducing the turbulent nobles and people of Scotland 
 to the same submissive and quiet state in which he found 
 England, but in which it was not his good fortune to leave it. 
 With this view he proposed, that the Legislature of each nation 
 should appoint Commissioners, to consider of the terms on 
 which it might be possible to unite both under the same 
 constitution. With some difficulty on both sides, the Parlia- 
 ment of England was prevailed on to name forty-four Com- 
 missioners, while the Scottish Parliament appointed thirty-six, 
 to consider this important subject. 
 
 The very first conferences showed how impossible it was to 
 accomplish the desired object, until time should have removed 
 or softened those prejudices, which had existed during the long
 
 I6I2-I8 PROPOSAL OF UNION 395 
 
 state of separation and hostility betwixt the two nations. 
 The English Commissioners demanded, as a preliminary 
 stipulation, that the whole system of English law should be at 
 once extended to Scotland. The Scots rejected the proposal 
 with disdain, justly alleging, that nothing less than absolute 
 conquest by force of arms could authorise the subjection of an 
 independent nation to the customs and laws of a foreign country. 
 The treaty, therefore, was in a great degree shipwrecked at 
 the very commencement the proposal for the union was 
 suifered to fall asleep, and the King only reaped from his 
 attempt the disadvantage of having excited the suspicions and 
 fears of the Scottish lawyers, who had been threatened with 
 the total destruction of their national system of Jurisprudence. 
 This impression was the deeper, as the profession of the law, 
 which must be influential in every government, was particularly 
 so in Scotland, it being chiefly practised in that kingdom by 
 the sons of the higher class of gentry. 
 
 Though in a great measure disappointed in his efforts for 
 effecting a general union and correspondence of laws between 
 the two nations, James remained extremely desirous to obtain 
 at least an ecclesiastical conformity of opinion, by bringing the 
 form and constitution of the Scottish Church as near as possible 
 to that of England. What he attempted and accomplished 
 in this respect, constitutes an important part of the history 
 of his reign, and gave occasion to some of the most remarkable 
 and calamitous events in that of his successor. 
 
 I must remind you, my dear child, that the Reformation 
 was effected by very different agency in England, from that 
 which produced a similar change in Scotland. The new plans 
 of Church government adopted in the two nations did not in 
 the least resemble each other, although the doctrines which 
 they teach are so nearly alike, that little distinction can be 
 traced, save what is of a very subtle and metaphysical character. 
 But the outward forms of the two churches are totally different. 
 
 You must remember that the Reformation of the Church of 
 England was originally brought about by Henry VIII., whose 
 principal object was to destroy the dependence of the clergy 
 upon the Pope, and transfer to himself, whom he declared 
 Head of the Church in his own regal right, all the authority 
 and influence which had formerly been enjoyed by the Papal 
 See. When, therefore, Henry had destroyed the monastic
 
 396 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP, xxxvi 
 
 establishments, and confiscated their possessions, and had re- 
 formed such doctrines of the Church as he judged to require 
 amendment, it became his object to preserve the general con- 
 stitution and hierarchy, that is the gradation of superior and 
 inferior clergy, by whom her functions were administered. The 
 chief difference therefore was, that the patronage exercised by 
 the Pope was, in a great measure, transferred to the crown, and 
 distributed by the hands of the King himself, to whom, there- 
 fore, the inferior clergy must naturally be attached by hope of 
 preferment, and the superior orders by gratitude for past favours, 
 and the expectation of further advancement. The order of bishops, 
 in particular, raised to that rank by the crown, and enjoying 
 seats in the House of Lords, must be supposed, on most 
 occasions, Avilling to espouse the cause, and forward the views 
 of the King, in such debates as might occur in that assembly. 
 
 The Reformation in Scotland had taken place by a sudden 
 popular impulse, and the form of Church government adopted 
 by Knox, and the other preachers under whose influence it had 
 been accomplished, was studiously rendered as different as 
 possible from the Roman hierarchy. The Presbyterian system, 
 as I said in a former chapter, was upon the model of the purest 
 republican simplicity ; the brethren who served the altar claimed 
 and allowed of no superiority of ranks, and of no influence 
 but what individuals might attach to themselves by superior 
 worth or superior talent. The representatives who formed 
 their church courts, were selected by plurality of votes, and no 
 other Head of the Church, visible or invisible, was acknow- 
 ledged, save the blessed Founder of the Christian Religion, in 
 whose name the Church courts of Scotland were and still are 
 convoked and dismissed. 
 
 Over a body so constituted, the King could have little 
 influence or power; nor did James acquire any by his personal 
 conduct. It was, indeed, partly by the influence of the clergy 
 that he had been in infancy placed upon the throne ; but, as 
 their conduct in this was regarded by James, in his secret soul, 
 as an act of rebellion against his mother's authority, he gave 
 the Kirk of Scotland little thanks for what they had done. It 
 must be owned the preachers made no attempt to conciliate 
 his favour ; for, although they had no legal call to speak their 
 sentiments upon public and political affairs, they yet entered 
 into them without ceremony, whenever they could show that
 
 1612 l8 INTRODUCTION OF EPISCOPACY 397 
 
 the interest of the Church gave a specious apology for inter- 
 ference. The Scottish pulpits rang with invectives against the 
 King's ministers, and sometimes against the King himself; 
 and the more hot-headed among the clergy were disposed not 
 only to thwart James's inclinations, and put the worst con- 
 struction upon his intentions, but even publicly to insult him 
 in their sermons, and favoxir the insurrections attempted by 
 Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, and others, against his authority. 
 They often entertained him with violent invectives against his 
 mother's memory ; and, it is said, that on one occasion, when 
 the King, losing patience, commanded one of these zealots 
 either to speak sense or come down from the pulpit, the 
 preacher replied to this request, which one would have thought 
 a very reasonable one, " I tell thee, man, I will neither speak 
 sense nor come down." 
 
 James did not see that these acts of petulance and contu- 
 macy arose, in a great measure, from the suspicions which the 
 Scottish clergy justly entertained of his desiring to innovate 
 upon the Presbyterian model ; and hastily concluded that their 
 refractory conduct, which was the result of mutual jealousies, 
 was essential to the character of the peculiar form of Church 
 government, and that the spirit of Presbytery was in itself 
 inimical to a monarchical establishment. 
 
 As soon, therefore, as the King obtained the high increase 
 of power which arose from his accession to the English throne, 
 he set himself gradually to new-model the Scottish Church, so 
 as to bring it nearer to that of England, and to obtain for the 
 crown some preponderating influence in its councils. But the 
 suspicions of the Presbyterian clergy were constantly alive to 
 their sovereign's intentions. It was in vain he endeavoured 
 to avail himself of the institution of an order of men called 
 Superintendents, to whom the Book of Discipline, drawn up 
 by Knox himself, had assigned a sort of presidency in certain 
 cases, with power of inspecting the merits of the clergy. By 
 re-establishing superior offices among the clergy, James en- 
 deavoured to introduce a sort of permanent presidents into the 
 several presbyteries. But the ministers clearly saw his ulti- 
 mate object. " Busk (dress), busk him as bonnily as you can," 
 cried Mr. John Davidson, " bring him in as fairly as you will, 
 we see the horns of his mitre weel enough ;" and the horns of 
 the mitre were, to their apprehension, as odious as the horns
 
 398 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXVI 
 
 of the Pope's tiara, or those of Satan himself. At last the 
 King ventured on a decisive stroke. He named thirteen 
 bishops, and obtained the consent of Parliament for restoring 
 them to the small remains of their dilapidated bishoprics. The 
 other bishoprics, seventeen in number, were converted into 
 temporal lordships. 
 
 It cannot be denied that the leaders of the Presbyterian 
 clergy showed the utmost skill and courage in the defence of 
 the immunities of their Church. They were endeared to the 
 people by the purity of their lives, by the depth of learning 
 possessed by some, and the powerful talents exhibited by 
 others ; above all, perhaps, by the willingness with which they 
 submitted to deprivation of office, accompanied by poverty, 
 penalties, and banishment, rather than betray the cause which 
 they considered as sacred. The King had in 1605 openly 
 asserted his right to call and to dissolve the General Assemblies 
 of the Church. Several of the clergy, however, in contempt 
 of the monarch, summoned and attended a General Assembly 
 at Aberdeen independent of his authority. This opportunity 
 was taken to chastise the refractory clergymen. Five of their 
 number were punished with banishment. In 1606 the two 
 celebrated preachers named Melville were summoned before the 
 Council, and upbraided by the King with their resistance to 
 his will. They defended themselves with courage, and claimed 
 the right of being tried by the laws of Scotland, a free king- 
 dom, having laws and privileges of its own. But the elder 
 Melville furnished a handle against them by his own imprud- 
 ence. 
 
 In a debate before the Privy Council, concerning a Latin 
 copy of verses, which Andrew Melville had written in derision 
 of the ceremonies of the Church of England, the old man gave 
 way to indecent violence, seized the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 by the lawn sleeves, which he shook, calling them Romish 
 rags, and charged the prelate as a breaker of the Sabbath, the 
 maintainer of an an ti- Christian hierarchy, the persecutor of 
 true preachers, the enemy of reformed churches, and proclaimed 
 himself his mortal enemy to the last drop of his blood. This 
 indiscretion and violence afforded a pretext for committing the 
 hot old Presbyterian divine to the Tower ; and he was after- 
 wards exiled, and died at Sedan. The younger Melville was 
 confined to Berwick, several other clergymen were banished
 
 1612-18 INTRODUCTION OF EPISCOPACY 399 
 
 from their parishes to remote parts, aud the Kirk of Scotland 
 was for the time reduced to reluctant submission to the King's 
 will. Thus the order of bishops was once more introduced into 
 the Scottish Church. 
 
 James's projects of innovation were not entirely accomplished 
 by the introduction of prelacy. The Church of England, at the 
 Reformation, had retained some particular rites in observance, 
 which had decency at least to recommend them, but which 
 the headlong opposition of the Presbyterians to everything 
 approaching to the Popish ritual induced them to reject with 
 horror. Five of these were introduced into Scotland, by an 
 enactment passed by a parliament held at Perth [1618], and 
 thence distinguished as the Five Articles of Perth. In modern 
 times, when the mere ceremonial part of divine worship is 
 supposed to be of little consequence, compared with the temper 
 and spirit in which we approach the Deity, the Five Articles 
 of Perth seem to involve matters which might be dispensed 
 or complied with, without being considered as essential to 
 salvation. They were as follows : I. It was ordained that 
 the communion should be received in a kneeling posture, and 
 not sitting, as hitherto practised in the Scottish churches. II. 
 That, in extreme cases, the communion might be administered 
 in private. III. That baptism also might, when necessary, be 
 administered in private. IV. That youth, as they grew up, 
 should be confirmed, as it is termed, by the bishop ; being a 
 kind of personal avowal of the engagements entered into by 
 godfathers and godmothers at the time of baptism. V. That 
 four days, distinguished by events of the utmost importance to 
 the Christian religion, should be observed as holidays. These 
 were Christmas, on which day our Saviour was born ; Good 
 Friday, when he suffered death ; Easter, when he arose from 
 the dead ; and Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on 
 the apostles. 
 
 But, notwithstanding the moderate character of these inno- 
 vations, the utmost difficulty was found in persuading even 
 those of the Scottish clergy who were most favourable to the 
 King to receive them into the Church, and they only did so on 
 the assurance that they should not be required to adopt any 
 additional changes. The main body of the churchmen, though 
 terrified into sullen acquiescence, were unanimous in opinion 
 that the new regulations indicated a manifest return towards
 
 400 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXVII 
 
 Popery. The common people held the same opinion ; and a 
 thunderstorm of unusual violence, which took place at the 
 time the Parliament was sitting in debate upon the adoption 
 of these obnoxious articles, was considered as a declaration of 
 the wrath of Heaven against those who were again introducing 
 the rites and festivals of the Roman Church into the pure and 
 reformed Kirk of Scotland. In short, this attempt to infuse 
 into the Presbyterian model something of the principles of a 
 moderate prelacy, and to bring it, in a few particulars, into 
 conformity with that of the sister kingdom, was generally 
 unacceptable to the Church and to the nation ; and it will be 
 hereafter shown, that an endeavour to extend and heighten the 
 edifice which his father had commenced, led the way to those 
 acts of violence which cost Charles I. his throne and life. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 Disorderly State of the Borders Battle of Dryfe Sands Severe Pro- 
 secution of Offenders The Town of Bervrick-upon- Tweed 
 
 WE are next to examine the effect which James's accession 
 to the throne of England had upon those lawless parts of his 
 kingdom, the Borders and the Highlands, as well as on the 
 more civilised provinces of Scotland of which I shall take 
 notice in their order. 
 
 The consequences of the union of the crowns were more 
 immediately felt on the Borders, which, from being the ex- 
 tremity of both countries, were now converted into the centre 
 of the kingdom. But it was not easy to see how the restless 
 and violent inhabitants, who had been for so many centuries 
 accustomed to a lawless and military life, were to conduct them- 
 selves, when the general peace around left them no enemies 
 either to fight with or plunder. 
 
 These Borderers were, as I have elsewhere told you, divided 
 into families, or clans, who followed a leader supposed to be 
 descended from the original father of the tribe. They lived in 
 a great measure by the rapine which they exercised indiscrimi- 
 nately on the English, or their own countrymen, the inhabit- 
 ants of the more inland districts, or by the protection-money 
 which they exacted for leaving them undisturbed. This kind
 
 1590-1613 BORDER MATCH-MAKING 401 
 
 of plundering was esteemed by them in the highest degree 
 honourable and praiseworthy; and the following, as well as 
 many other curious stories, is an example of this : 
 
 A young gentleman, 1 of a distinguished family belonging to 
 one of these Border tribes, or clans, made, either from the de- 
 sire of plunder, or from revenge, a raid, or incursion, upon 
 the lands of Sir Gideon Murray of Elibank, afterwards deputy- 
 treasurer of Scotland, and a great favourite of James VI. 
 The Laird of Elibank, having got his people under arms, en- 
 gaged the invaders, and, encountering them when they were 
 encumbered with spoil, defeated them, and made the leader of 
 the band prisoner. He was brought to the castle of his con- 
 queror, when the lady inquired of her victorious husband, 
 " What he intended to do with his captive ? " " I design," 
 said the fierce baron, " to hang him instantly, dame, as a man 
 taken red-hand in the act of robbery and violence." "That 
 is not like your wisdom, Sir Gideon," answered his more con- 
 siderate lady. " If you put to death this young gentleman, 
 you will enter into deadly feud with his numerous and power- 
 ful clan. You must therefore do a wiser thing, and, instead 
 of hanging him, we will cause him to marry our youngest 
 daughter, Meg with the meikle mouth, without any tocher " 
 (that is, without any portion). The laird joyfully consented ; 
 for this Meg with the large mouth was so ugly, that there was 
 very little chance of her getting a husband in any other cir- 
 cumstances ; and, in fact, when the alternative of such a mar- 
 riage, or death by the gallows, was proposed to the poor prisoner, 
 he was for some time disposed to choose the latter ; nor was it 
 without difficulty that he could be persuaded to save his life at 
 the expense of marrying Meg Murray. He did so at last, 
 however ; and it is said, that Meg, thus forced upon him, made 
 an excellent and affectionate wife ; but the unusual size of mouth 
 was supposed to remain discernible in their descendants for 
 several generations. 2 I mention this anecdote, because it oc- 
 
 1 "William (afterwards Sir William) Scott, eldest son of Walter Scott 
 of Harden, and of his lady, the celebrated Mary Scott, 'the Flower of 
 Yarrow,' of whose way of living it is mentioned that when the last bul- 
 lock was killed and devoured, it was the lady's custom to place on the 
 table a dish, which, on being uncovered, was found to contain a pair of 
 clean spurs ; a hint to the riders that they must shift for their next meal." 
 Note, Border Minstrelsy, New Edit. vol. i. p. 211. 
 
 2 The union contracted under such singular circumstances gave birth 
 
 2G
 
 402 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXVII 
 
 eurred during Jaines the Sixth's reigii, and shows, iu a striking 
 manner, how little the Borderers had improved in their sense of 
 morality, or distinctions between right and wrong. 
 
 A more important, but not more characteristic event, which 
 happened not long afterwards, shows, in its progress, the utter 
 lawlessness and contempt of legal authority which prevailed on 
 the Borders in the commencement of this reign, and, in its con- 
 clusion, the increased power of the monarch after the Union of 
 the Crowns. 
 
 There had been long and deadly feud, on the West Borders, 
 betwixt the two great families of Maxwell and Johnstone. 
 The former house was the most wealthy and powerful family in 
 Dumfriesshire and its vicinity, and had great influence among 
 the families inhabiting the more level part of that county. 
 Their chieftain had the title of Lord Maxwell, and claimed that 
 of Earl of Morton. The Johnstones, on the other hand, were 
 neither equal to the Maxwells in numbers nor in power ; but 
 they were a race of uncommon hardihood, much attached to 
 each other and their chieftain, and who, residing in the strong 
 and mountainous district of Annandale, used to sally from 
 thence as from a fortress, and return to its fastnesses after 
 having accomplished their inroads. They were, therefore, able 
 to maintain their ground against the Maxwells, though more 
 numerous than themselves. 
 
 So well was this known to be the case, that when, in 1585, 
 the Lord Maxwell was declared to be a rebel, a commission was 
 given to the Laird of Johnstone to pursue and apprehend him. 
 In this, however, Johnstone was unsuccessful. Two bands of 
 hired soldiers, whom the Government had sent to his assistance, 
 were destroyed by the Maxwells; and Lochwood, the chief 
 house of the laird, was taken and wantonly burnt, in order, as 
 the Maxwells expressed it, that Lady Johnstone might have 
 light to put on her hood. Johnstone himself was subsequently 
 defeated and made prisoner. Being a man of a proud and 
 haughty temper, he is said to have died of grief at the disgrace 
 
 to 1. Sir William Scott the second, who carried on the line of the family 
 of Harden 2. Sir Gideon Scott of High Chester, whose son was created 
 Earl of Tan-as on his marriage with Agnes, Countess of Buccleuch, but having 
 no issue, the honours and estate of Buccleuch devolved upon her younger 
 sister Anne, married to the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth 3. Walter Scott 
 of Itaeburn, progenitor of our author. 4. John, of whom are descended 
 the Scotia ol Wool
 
 1590-1613 BORDER FEUD 403 
 
 which he incurred ; and thus there commenced a long series of 
 mutual injuries between the hostile clans. 
 
 Shortly after this catastrophe, Maxwell, being restored to 
 the King's favour, was once more placed in the situation of 
 Warden of the West Borders ; and an alliance was made be- 
 twixt him and Sir James Johnstone, in which they and their 
 two clans agreed to stand by each other against all the world. 
 This agreement being entered into, the clan of Johnstone con- 
 cluded they had little to apprehend from the justice of the new 
 Lord Warden, so long as they did not plunder any of the name 
 of Maxwell. They accordingly descended into the valley of the 
 Nith, and committed great spoil on the lands belonging to 
 Douglas of Drumlanrig, Creichton Lord Sanquhar, Grierson of 
 Lagg, and Kirkpatrick of Closeburn, all of them independent 
 barons of high birth and great power. The injured parties 
 pursued the depredators with forces hastily assembled, but were 
 defeated with slaughter in their attempt to recover the prey. 
 The despoiled and injured barons next carried their complaints 
 to Maxwell the warden, who alleged his late alliance with 
 Johnstone as a reason why he could not yield them the redress 
 which his office entitled them to expect at his hands. But 
 when, to make up for such risk as he might incur by renewing 
 his enmity with the Johnstones, the barons of Nithsdale offered 
 to bind themselves by a bond of manrent, as it was called, to 
 become the favourers and followers of Lord Maxwell in all his 
 quarrels, excepting against the King, the temptation became 
 too strong to be overcome, and the ambitious warden resolved 
 to sacrifice his newly formed friendship with Johnstone to the 
 desire of extending his authority over so powerful a confederacy. 
 
 The secret of this association did not long remain concealed 
 from Johnstone, who saw that his own destruction and the 
 ruin of his clan were the objects aimed at, and hastened to 
 apply to his neighbours in the east and south for assistance. 
 Buccleuch, the relative of Johnstone, and by far his most 
 powerful ally, was then in foreign parts. But the Laird of Eli- 
 bank, mentioned in the last story, bore the banner of Buccleuch 
 in person, and assembled five hundred men of the chin of Scott, 
 whom our historians term the greatest robbers and fiercest 
 fighters among the Border clans. The Elliots of Liddesdale 
 also assisted Johnstoue ; and his neighbours on the southern 
 parts, the Grahams of the Debateable Land, from hopes of
 
 404 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXVII 
 
 plunder and ancient enmity to the Maxwells, sent also a con- 
 siderable number of spears. 
 
 Thus prepared for war, Johnstoue took the field with ac- 
 tivity, while Maxwell, on the other part, hastily assembling bis 
 own forces, and those of his new followers, the Nithsdale 
 barons, Drumlanrig, Lagg, Closeburn, the Creichtons, and 
 others, invaded Annandale with the royal banner displayed, 
 and a force of upwards of two thousand men. Johnstone, un- 
 equal in numbers, stood on the defensive, and kept possession 
 of the woods and strong ground ; waiting an opportunity of 
 fighting to advantage ; while Maxwell, in contempt of him, 
 formed the siege of the castle or tower of Lockerby, the fort- 
 ress of a Johnstone, who was then in arms with his chief. His 
 wife, a woman of a masculine disposition, the sister or daughter 
 of the laird who had died in Maxwell's prison, defended his 
 place of residence. While Maxwell endeavoured to storm the 
 castle, and while it was bravely defended by its female captain, 
 the chief received information that the Laird of Johnstone was 
 advancing to its relief. He drew off from the siege, marched 
 towards his feudal enemy, and caused it to be published through 
 his little army that he would give a " ten-pound land," that is, 
 land rated in the cess-books at that yearly amount, " to any 
 one who would bring him the head or hand of the Laird of 
 Johnstone." When this was reported to Johnstone, he said 
 he had no ten-pound lands to otter, but that he would bestow 
 a five-merk land upon the man who should bring him the head 
 or hand of Lord Maxwell 
 
 The conflict took place close by the river Dryfe near Loch- 
 maben, and is called the Battle of Dryfe Sands. It was managed 
 by Johnstone with considerable military skill. He 
 8 howed at first on ty a handful of horsemen, who made 
 a hasty attack upon Maxwell's army, and then retired 
 in a manner which induced the enemy to consider them as de- 
 feated, and led them to pursue in disorder with loud acclama- 
 tions of victory. The Maxwells and their coni'ederates were 
 thus exposed to a sudden and desperate charge from the main 
 body of the Johnstones and their allies, who fell upon them 
 while their ranks were broken, and compelled them to take to 
 flight The Maxwells and the confederated barons suffered 
 grievously in the retreat many were overtaken in the streets 
 of Lockerby, and cut down or Blushed in the face by the pur-
 
 1590-1613 BATTLE OF DRYFE SANDS 405 
 
 suers ; a kind of blow which to this day is called in that country 
 a " Lockerby lick." 
 
 Maxwell himself, an elderly man and heavily armed, was 
 borne down from his horse in the beginning of the conflict ; 
 and, as he named his name and offered to surrender, his right 
 hand, which he stretched out for mercy, was cut from his body. 
 Thus far history ; but family tradition adds the following cir- 
 cumstance : The Lady of Lockerby, who was besieged in her 
 tower as already mentioned, had witnessed from the battlements 
 the approach of the Laird of Johnstone, and as soon as the 
 enemy withdrew from the blockade of the fortress, had sent to 
 the assistance of her chief the few servants who had assisted 
 in the defence. After this she heard the tumult of battle, but 
 as she could not from the tower see the place where it was 
 fought, she remained in an agony of suspense, until, as the 
 noise seemed to pass away in a westerly direction, she could 
 endure the uncertainty no longer, but sallied out from the 
 tower, with only one female attendant, to see how the day had 
 gone. As a measure of precaution, she locked the strong oaken 
 door and the iron grate with which a Border fortress was com- 
 monly secured, and knitting the large keys on a thong, took 
 them with her, hanging on her arm. 
 
 When the Lady of Lockerby entered on the field of battle, 
 she found all the relics of a bloody fight ; the little valley was 
 covered with slain men and horses, and broken armour, besides 
 many wounded, who were incapable of further effort for saving 
 themselves. Amongst others, she saw lying beneath a thorn- 
 tree a tall, gray-haired, noble-looking man, arrayed in bright 
 armour, but bareheaded, and bleeding to death from the loss of 
 his right hand. He asked her for mercy and help with a fal- 
 tering voice; but the idea of deadly feud in that time and 
 country closed all access to compassion even in the female 
 bosom. She saw before her the only enemy of her clan, and 
 the cause of her father's captivity and death ; and raising the 
 ponderous keys which she bore along with her, the Lady of 
 Lockerby is commonly reported to have dashed out the brains 
 of the vanquished Lord MaxwclL 
 
 The battle of Dryfe Sands was remarkable as the last 
 great clan battle fought on the Borders, and it led to the 
 renewal of the strife betwixt the Maxwells and Johnstones, 
 with every circumstance of ferocity which could add horroi
 
 406 TALKS OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXVM 
 
 to civil war. The last distinguished act of the tragedy took 
 place thus : 
 
 The son of the slain Lord Maxwell invited Sir James John- 
 stone to a friendly conference, to which each chieftain engaged 
 to bring one friend only. They met at a place called Auchman- 
 hill, on the 6th August 1608, when the attendant of Lord 
 Maxwell, after falling into bitter and reproachful language with 
 Johnstone of Gunmanlie, who was in attendance on his chief, at 
 length fired his pistol Sir James Johnstone turning round to 
 see what had happened, Lord Maxwell treacherously shot him 
 through the back with a pistol charged with a brace of poisoned 
 bullets. While the gallant old knight lay dying on the ground, 
 Maxwell rode round him with the view of completing his crime, 
 but Johnstone defended himself with his sword till strength and 
 life failed him. 
 
 This final catastrophe of such a succession of bloody acts of 
 revenge took place several years after the union of the crowns, 
 and the consequences, so different from those which ensued on 
 former occasions, show how effectually the King's authority, 
 and the power of enforcing the course of equal justice, had 
 increased in consequence of that desirable event You may 
 observe, from the incidents mentioned, that in 1585, when 
 Lord Maxwell assaulted and made prisoner the Laird of John- 
 stone, then the King's warden, and acting in his name, and 
 committed him to the captivity in which he died, James was 
 totally unequal to the task of vindicating his royal authority, 
 and saw himself compelled to receive Maxwell into favour and 
 trust, as if he had done nothing contrary to the laws. Nor 
 was the royal authority more effectual in 1593, when Maxwell, 
 acting as royal warden, and having the King's banner displayed, 
 was in his turn defeated and slain, in so melancholy and cruel 
 a manner, at Dryfe Sands. On the contrary, Sir James John- 
 stone was not only pardoned, but restored to favour and trust 
 by the King. But there was a striking difference in the con- 
 sequences of the murder which took place at Auchmanhill in 
 1608. Lord Maxwell, finding no refuge in the Border country, 
 was obliged to escape to France, where he resided for two or 
 three years; but afterwards venturing to return to Scotland, 
 he was apprehended in the wilds of Caithness, and brought to 
 trial at Edinburgh. James, desirous on this occasion to strike 
 terror, by a salutary warning, into the factious nobility and
 
 1590-1613 STATE OF THE BORDERS 407 
 
 disorderly Borderers, caused the criminal to be publicly beheaded 
 on 21st May 1613. 1 
 
 Many instances might be added to show that the course of 
 justice on the Border began, after the accession of James to 
 the English throne, to flow with a less interrupted stream, even 
 where men of rank and power were concerned. 
 
 The inferior class of freebooters was treated with much less 
 ceremony. Proclamations were made, that none of the inhabit- 
 ants of either side of the Border (except noblemen and gentle- 
 men of unsuspected character) should retain in their possession 
 armour or weapons, offensive or defensive, or keep any horse 
 above the value of fifty shillings. Particular clans, described 
 as broken men, were especially forbid the use of weapons. The 
 celebrated clan of Armstrong had, on the very night in which 
 Queen Elizabeth's death became public, concluding that a time 
 of such misrule as that in which they had hitherto made their 
 harvest was again approaching, and desirous of losing no time, 
 made a fierce incursion into England, extending their ravages 
 as far as Penrith, and done much mischief. But such a con- 
 sequence had been foreseen and provided against. A strong 
 body of soldiers, both English and Scots, swept along the 
 Border, and severely punished the marauders, blowing up their 
 fortresses with gunpowder, destroying their lands, and driving 
 away their cattle and flocks. Several of the principal leaders 
 were taken and executed at Carlisle. The Armstrongs appear 
 never to have recovered their consequence after this severe 
 chastisement ; nor are there many of this celebrated clan now 
 to be found among the landholders of Liddesdale, where they 
 once possessed the whole district. 
 
 The Grahams, long the inhabitants of the Debateable Land 
 which was claimed both by England and Scotland, were still 
 more severely dealt with. They were very brave and active 
 Borderers attached to England, for which country, and particu- 
 larly in Edward VI.'s time, they had often done good service. 
 But they were also very lawless plunderers, and their incursions 
 
 1 " Thus was finally ended by a salutary example of severity, the 'foul 
 debate' betwixt the Maxwells and Johnstones, in the course of which 
 each family lost two chieftains ; one dying of a broken heart, one in the 
 field of battle, one by assassination, and one by the sword of the execu- 
 tioner." See Notes to the ballads of "Lord Maxwell's Good Night," and 
 " The Lads of Wamphray," in " The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," 
 New Edition,
 
 408 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXVII 
 
 were as much dreaded by the inhabitants of Cumberland as by 
 those of the Scottish frontier. Thus their conduct was equally 
 the subject of complaint on both sides of the Border ; and the 
 poor Grahams, seeing no alternative, were compelled to sign a 
 petition to the King, confessing themselves to be unfit persons 
 to dwell in the country which they now inhabited, and praying 
 that he would provide the means of transporting them elsewhere, 
 where his paternal goodness should assign them the means of 
 subsistence. The whole clan, a very few individuals excepted, 
 were thus deprived of their lands and residences, and trans- 
 ported to the county of Ulster, in Ireland, where they were 
 settled on lands which had been acquired from the conquered 
 Irish. There is a list in existence which shows the rate at 
 which the county of Cumberland was taxed for the export- 
 ation of these poor Borderers, as if they had been so many 
 bullocks. 
 
 Another efficient mode of getting rid of a warlike and dis- 
 orderly population, who, though an admirable defence of a 
 country in time of war, must have been great scourges in 
 time of the profound peace to which the Border districts were 
 consigned after the close of the English wars, was the levying 
 a large body of soldiers to serve in foreign countries. The 
 love of military adventure had already carried one legion of 
 Scots to serve the Dutch in their defence against the Spaniards, 
 and they had done great service in the Low Countries, and 
 particularly at the battle of Mechline, in 1578; where, 
 impatient of the heat of the weather, to the astonishment of 
 both friends and enemies, the Scottish auxiliaries flung off 
 their upper garments, and fought like furies in their shirts. 
 The circumstance is pointed out in the plan of the battle, 
 which is to be found in Strada's history, with the explanation, 
 " Here the Scots fought naked." 
 
 Buccleuch levied a large additional force from the Border, 
 whose occupation in their native country was gone for ever. 
 These also distinguished themselves in the wars of the Low 
 Countries. It may be supposed that very many of them 
 perished in the field, and the descendants of others still sur- 
 vive in the Netherlands and in Germany. 
 
 In addition to the relief afforded by such an outlet for a 
 superfluous military population, whose numbers greatly ex- 
 ceeded what the land could have supplied with food, and who,
 
 1590-1613 STATE OF THE BORDERS 409 
 
 in fact, had only lived upon plunder, bonds were entered into 
 by the men of substance and family on the Borders, not only 
 obliging themselves to abstain from depredations, but to stand 
 by each other in putting down and preventing such evil doings 
 at the hand of others, and in making common cause against 
 any clan, branch, or surname, who might take offence at any 
 individual for acting in prosecution of this engagement. They 
 engaged also to the King and to each other, not only to seize 
 and deliver to justice such thieves as should take refuge in 
 their grounds, but to discharge from their families or estates all 
 persons, domestics, tenants, or others, who could be suspected 
 of such offences, and to supply their place with honest and 
 peaceable subjects. I am possessed of such a bond, dated in 
 the year 1612, and subscribed by about twenty landholders, 
 chiefly of the name of Scott. 
 
 Finally, an unusually severe and keen prosecution of all who 
 were convicted, accused, or even suspected, of offence against 
 the peace of the Border, was set on foot by George Home, 
 Earl of Dunbar, James's able but not very scrupulous minister; 
 and these judicial measures were conducted so severely as to 
 give rise to the proverb of Jeddart (or Jedburgh) justice, by 
 which it is said a criminal was hanged first and tried after- 
 wards ; the truth of which is affirmed by historians as a well- 
 known fact, occurring in numerous instances. 
 
 Cruel as these measures were, they tended to remedy a dis- 
 ease which seemed almost desperate. Rent, the very name of 
 which had till that period scarcely been heard on the Border, 
 began to be paid for property, and the proprietors of land 
 turned their thoughts to rural industry, instead of the arts of 
 predatory warfare. But it was more than a century ere the 
 country, so long a harassed and disputed frontier, gained the 
 undisturbed appearance of a civilised land. 
 
 Before leaving the subject of the Borders, I ought to explain 
 to you, that as the possession of the strong and important 
 town of Berwick had been long and fiercely disputed between 
 England and Scotland, and as the latter country had never 
 surrendered or abandoned her claim to the place, though it had 
 so long remained an English possession, James, to avoid giving 
 offence to either nation, left the question undecided, and since 
 the union of the Crowns the city is never spoken of as part of 
 England or Scotland, but as the King's Good Town of Berwick-
 
 410 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXVIII 
 
 upon-Tweed ; and when a law is made for North and South 
 Britain, without special and distinct mention of this ancient 
 town, that law is of no force or avail within its precincts. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 WiU State of the Western Islands 
 
 THE Highlands and Western Islands were in no respect so 
 much affected by the union of the Crowns as the inhabitants 
 of the Borders. The accession of James to the English throne 
 was of little consequence to them, unless in so far as it rendered 
 the King more powerful, and gave him the means of occasion- 
 ally sending bodies of troops into their fortresses to compel 
 them to order; and this was a measure of unusual rigour, 
 which was but seldom resorted to. 
 
 The Highland tribes, therefore, remained in the same state 
 as before, using the same dress, wielding the same arms, divided 
 into the same clans, each governed by its own patriarch, and 
 living in all respects as their ancestors had lived for many 
 centuries before them. Or if there were some marks of softened 
 manners among those Gaelic tribes who resided on the main- 
 land, the inhabitants of the Hebrides or Western Isles, adjacent 
 to the coast of Scotland, are described to us as utterly barbar- 
 ous. A historian of the period says, " That the Highlanders 
 who dwell on the mainland, though sufficiently wild, show some 
 shade of civilisation ; but those in the islands are without laws or 
 morals, and totally destitute of religion and humanity." Some 
 stories of their feuds are indeed preserved, which go far to sup- 
 port this general accusation. I will tell you one or two of them. 
 
 The principal possessors of the Hebrides were originally of 
 the name of MacDonald, the whole being under the govern- 
 ment of a succession of chiefs, who bore the name of Donald of 
 the Isles, as we have already mentioned, and were possessed 
 of authority almost independent of the Kings of Scotland. 
 But this great family becoming divided into two or three 
 branches, other chiefs settled in some of the islands, and dis- 
 puted the property of the original proprietors. Thus, the 
 MacLeods, a powerful and numerous clan, who had extensive 
 estates on the mainland, made themselves masters, at a very
 
 1590-1613 THE WESTERN ISLES 411 
 
 early period, of a great part of the large island of Skye, seized 
 upon much of the Long Island, as the Isles of Lewis and Harris 
 are called, and fought fiercely with the MacDonalds, and other 
 tribes of the islands. The following is an example of the mode 
 in which these feuds were conducted. 
 
 About the end of the sixteenth century a boat, manned by 
 one or two of the MacLeods, landed in Eigg, a small island, 
 peopled by the MacDonalds. They were at first hospitably 
 received ; but having been guilty of some incivility to the 
 young women on the island, it was so much resented by the 
 inhabitants, that they tied the MacLeods hand and foot, and 
 putting them on board of their own boat, towed it to sea, and 
 set it adrift, leaving the wretched men, bound as they were, 
 to perish by famine, or by the winds and waves, as chance 
 should determine. But fate so ordered it, that a boat belong- 
 ing to the Laird of MacLeod fell in with that which had the 
 captives on board, and brought them in safety to the laird's 
 castle of Dunvegan in Skye, where they complained of the 
 injury which they had sustained from the MacDonalds of 
 Eigg. MacLeod, in a great rage, put to sea with his galleys, 
 manned by a large body of his people, which the men of Eigg 
 could not entertain any rational hope of resisting. Learning 
 that their incensed enemy was approaching with superior forces, 
 and deep vows of revenge, the inhabitants, who knew they had 
 no mercy to expect at MacLeod's hands, resolved, as the best 
 chance of safety in their power, to conceal themselves in a large 
 cavern on the seashore. 
 
 This place was particularly well calculated for that purpose. 
 The entrance resembles that of a fox-earth, being an opening 
 so small that a man cannot enter save by creeping on hands 
 and knees. A rill of water falls from the top of the rock, and 
 serves, or rather served at the period we speak of, wholly to 
 conceal the aperture. A stranger, even when apprised of the 
 existence of such a cave, would find the greatest difficulty in 
 discovering the entrance. Within, the cavern rises to a great 
 height, and the floor is covered with white dry sand. It is 
 extensive enough to contain a great number of people. The 
 whole inhabitants of Eigg, who, with their wives and families, 
 amounted to nearly two hundred souls, took refuge within its 
 precincts. 
 
 MacLeod arrived with his armament, and landed on the
 
 412 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP, xxxviil 
 
 island, but could discover no one on whom to wreak his venge- 
 ance all was desert. The MacLeods destroyed the huts of 
 the islanders, and plundered what property they could discover, 
 but the vengeance of the chieftain could not be satisfied with 
 such petty injuries. He knew that the inhabitants must either 
 have fled in their boats, to one of the islands possessed by the 
 MacDonalds, or that they must be concealed somewhere in 
 Eigg. After making a strict but unsuccessful search for two 
 days, MacLeod had appointed the third to leave his anchorage, 
 when, in the gray of the morning, one of the seamen beheld 
 from the deck of his galley the figure of a man on the island. 
 This was a spy whom the MacDonalds, impatient of their con- 
 finement in the cavern, had imprudently sent out to see whether 
 MacLeod had retired or no. The poor fellow, when he saw 
 himself discovered, endeavoured, by doubling, after the manner 
 of a hare or fox, to obliterate the track of his footsteps on 
 the snow, and prevent its being discovered where he had re- 
 entered the cavern. But all the arts he could use were fruit- 
 less; the invaders again landed, and tracked him to the entrance 
 of the den. 
 
 MacLeod then summoned those who were within it, and 
 called upon them to deliver up the individuals who had mal- 
 treated his men, to be disposed of at his pleasure. The Mac- 
 Donalds, still confident in the strength of their fastness, which 
 no assailant could enter but on hands and knees, refused to 
 surrender their clansmen. 
 
 MacLeod next commenced a dreadful work of indiscriminate 
 vengeance. He caused his people, by means of a ditch cut 
 above the top of the rock, to turn away the stream of water 
 which fell over the entrance of the cavern. This being done, 
 the MacLeods collected all the combustibles which could be 
 found on the island, particularly turf and quantities of dry 
 heather, piled them up against the aperture, and maintained 
 an immense fire for many hours, until the smoke, penetrating 
 into the inmost recesses of the cavern, stifled to death every 
 creature within. There is no doubt of the truth of this story, 
 dreadful as it is. The cavern is often visited by strangers; and 
 I have myself seen the place where the bones of the murdered 
 MacDonalds still remain, lying as thick on the floor of the 
 cave as in the charnel-house of a church. 1 
 
 1 In the journal of his Voyage to the Hebrides, August 181 4, Sir Walter
 
 1590-1613 ALLAN-A-SOP 413 
 
 The MacLeans, in like manner, a bold and hardy race, who, 
 originally followers of the Lords of the Isles, had assumed in- 
 dependence, seized upon great part both of the isle of Mull and 
 the still more valuable island of Islay, and made war on the 
 MacDonalds with various success. There is a story belonging 
 to this clan, which I may tell you, as giving another striking 
 picture of the manners of the Hebrideans. 
 
 The chief of the clan, MacLean of Duart, in the isle of 
 Mull, had a son who received the name of Allan-a-Sop, by 
 which he was distinguished from others of his clan. As his 
 father and mother were not married, Allan was of course ille- 
 gitimate, and had no inheritance to look for, save that which 
 he might win for himself. 
 
 But the beauty of the boy's mother having captivated a man 
 of rank in the clan, called MacLean of Torloisk, he married 
 her, and took her to reside with him at his castle of Torloisk, 
 situated on the shores of the sound, or small strait of the sea, 
 which divides the smaller island of Ulva from that of Mull. 
 Allan -a- Sop paid his mother frequent visits at her new resi- 
 dence, and she was naturally glad to see the poor boy, both 
 from affection, and on account of his personal strength and 
 beauty, which distinguished him above other youths of his 
 age. But she was obliged to confer marks of her attachment 
 on him as privately as she could, for Allan's visits were by no 
 means so acceptable to her husband as to herself. Indeed, 
 Torloisk liked so little to see the lad, that he determined to 
 put some affront on him, which should prevent his returning 
 to the castle for some time. An opportunity for executing his 
 purpose soon occurred. 
 
 The lady one morning, looking from the window, saw her 
 son coming wandering down the hill, and hastened to put a 
 girdle cake upon the fire, that he might have hot bread for 
 breakfast. Something called her out of the apartment after 
 making this preparation, and her husband, entering at the 
 same time, saw at once what she had been about, and deter- 
 mined to give the boy such a reception as should disgust him 
 for the future. He snatched the cake from the girdle, thrust 
 it into his step-son's hands, which he forcibly closed on the 
 
 Scott says, " I brought off, in spite of the prejudices of our sailors, a skull 
 from among the numerous specimens of mortality which the cavern af- 
 fonletl." foe .Vote, " lard of the Isles,"
 
 414 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXVIll 
 
 scalding bread, saying, "Here, Allan here is a cake which 
 your mother has got ready for your breakfast." Allan's hands 
 were severely burnt ; and, being a sharp-witted and proud boy, 
 he resented this mark of his step-father's ill-will, and came not 
 again to Torloisk. 
 
 At this time the western seas were covered with the vessels 
 of pirates, who, not unlike the Sea-Kings of Denmark at an 
 early period, sometimes settled and made conquests on the 
 islands. Allan-a-Sop was young, strong, and brave to despera- 
 tion. He entered as a mariner on board of one of these ships, 
 and in process of time obtained the command, first of one 
 galley, then of a small flotilla, with which he sailed round the 
 seas and collected considerable plunder, until his name became 
 both feared and famous. At length he proposed to himself to 
 pay a visit to his mother, whom he had not seen for many 
 years ; and setting sail for this purpose, he anchored one 
 morning in the sound of Ulva, and in front of the house of 
 Torloisk His mother was dead, but his stepfather, to whom 
 he was now as much an object of fear as he had been formerly 
 of aversion, hastened to the shore to receive his formidable 
 stepson, with great affectation of kindness and interest in his 
 prosperity ; while Allan-a-Sop, who, though very rough and 
 hasty, does not appear to have been sullen or vindictive, seemed 
 to take his kind reception in good part 
 
 The crafty old man succeeded so well, as he thought, in 
 securing Allan's friendship, and obliterating all recollections of 
 the former affront put on him, that he began to think it pos- 
 sible to employ his stepson in executing his own private 
 revenge upon MacQuarrie of Ulva, with whom, as was usual 
 between such neighbours, he had some feud. With this pur- 
 pose, he offered what he called the following good advice to 
 his son-in-law : " My dear Allan, you have now wandered over 
 the seas long enough ; it is tune you should have some footing 
 upon land, a castle to protect yourself in winter, a village and 
 cattle for your men, and a harbour to lay up your galleys. 
 Now, here is the island of Ulva, near at hand, which lies ready 
 for your occupation, and it will cost you no trouble, save that 
 of putting to death the present proprietor, the Laird of Mac- 
 Quarrie, a useless old carle, who has cumbered the world long 
 enough." 
 
 Allan-a-Sop thanked his stepfather for so happy a suggestion,
 
 1590-1613 ALLAN-A-SOP 415 
 
 which he declared he would put in execution forthwith. Accord- 
 ingly, setting sail the next morning, he appeared before 
 MacQuarrie's house an hour before noon. The old chief of 
 Ulva was much alarmed at the menacing apparition of so many 
 galleys, and his anxiety was not lessened by the news that they 
 were commanded by the redoubted Allau-a-Sop. Having no 
 effectual means of resistance, MacQuarrie, who was a man of 
 shrewd sense, saw no alternative save that of receiving the 
 invaders, whatever might be their purpose, with all outward 
 demonstrations of joy and satisfaction ; the more especially as 
 he recollected having taken some occasional notice of Allan 
 during his early youth, which he now resolved to make the 
 most of. Accordingly, MacQuarrie caused immediate prepara- 
 tions to be made for a banquet as splendid as circumstances 
 admitted, hastened down to the shore to meet the rover, and 
 welcomed him to Ulva with such an appearance of sincerity, 
 that the pirate found it impossible to pick any quarrel, which 
 might afford a pretence for executing the violent purpose which 
 he had been led to meditate. 
 
 They feasted together the whole day ; and, in the evening, 
 as Allan-a-Sop was about to retire to his ships, he thanked the 
 laird for his hospitality, but remarked, with a sigh, that it had 
 cost him -very dear. " How can that be," said MacQuarrie, 
 " when I bestowed this entertainment upon you in free good 
 will?" "It is true, my friend," replied the pirate, "but then 
 it has quite disconcerted the purpose for which I came hither ; 
 which was to put you to death, my good friend, and seize upon 
 your house and island, and so settle myself in the world. It 
 would have been very convenient for me, this island of Ulva ; 
 but your friendly reception has rendered it impossible for me 
 to execute my purpose : so that I must be a wanderer on the 
 seas for some time longer." Whatever MacQuarrie felt at 
 learning he had been so near to destruction, he took care to 
 show no emotion save surprise, and replied to his visitor, 
 " My dear Allan, who was it that put iuto your mind so unkind 
 a purpose towards your old friend ; for I am sure it never arose 
 from your own generous nature ? It must have been old Tor- 
 loisk, who made such an indifferent husband to your mother, 
 and such an unfriendly stepfather to you when you were a 
 helpless boy ; but now, when he sees you a bold and powerful 
 leader, he desires to make a quarrel betwixt you and those who
 
 416 TALES OP A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXVIII 
 
 were the friends of your youth. If you consider this matter 
 rightly, Allan, you will see that the estate and harbour of 
 Torloisk lie to the full as conveniently for you as those of Ulva, 
 and that, if you are disposed (as is very natural) to make a 
 settlement by force, it is much better it should be at the 
 expense of the old churl, who never showed you kindness or 
 countenance, than at that of a friend like me, who always 
 loved and honoured you." 
 
 Allan-a-Sop was struck with the justice of this reasoning ; 
 and the old offence of his scalded fingers was suddenly recalled 
 to his mind. " It is very true what you say, MacQuarrie," he 
 replied ; " and, besides, I have not forgotten what a hot break- 
 fast my stepfather treated me to one morning. Farewell for 
 the present ; you shall soon hear news of me from the other 
 side of the sound." Having said thus much, the pirate got on 
 board, and, commanding his men to unmoor the galleys, sailed 
 back to Torloisk, and prepared to land in arms. MacLean 
 hastened to meet him, in expectation to hear of the death of 
 his enemy, MacQuarrie. But Allan greeted him in a very 
 different manner from what he expected. "You hoary old 
 traitor," he said, "you instigated my simple good nature to 
 murder a better man than yourself ! But have you forgotten 
 how you scorched my fingers twenty years ago, with a burning 
 cake? The day is come that that breakfast must be paid for." 
 So saying, he dashed out the old man's brains with a battle-axe, 
 took possession of his castle and property, and established there 
 a distinguished branch of the clan of MacLean, 
 
 It is told of another of these western chiefs, who is said, 
 upon the whole, to have been a kind and good-natured man, 
 that he was subjected to repeated risk and injury by the 
 treachery of an ungrateful nephew, who attempted to surprise 
 his castle, in order to put his uncle to death, and obtain for 
 himself the command of the tribe. Being detected on the first 
 occasion, and brought before his uncle as a prisoner, the chief 
 dismissed him unharmed ; with a warning, however, not to 
 repeat the offence, since, if he did so, he would cause him to 
 be put to a death so fearful that all Scotland should ring with 
 it. The wicked young man persevered, and renewed his 
 attempts against his uncle's castle and life. Falling a second 
 time into the hands of the offended chieftain, the prisoner had 
 reason to term him as good as his word. He was confined in
 
 1590-1613 MASSACRE AT STOKNOWAY 417 
 
 the pit, or dungeon of the castle, a deep dark vault, to which 
 there was no access save through a hole in the roof. He was 
 left without food, till his appetite grew voracious ; the more so, 
 as he had reason to apprehend that it was intended to starve 
 him to death. But the vengeance of his uncle was of a more 
 refined character. The stone which covered the aperture in 
 the roof was lifted, and a quantity of salt beef let down to the 
 prisoner, who devoured it eagerly. When he had glutted him- 
 self with this food, and expected to be supplied with liquor, to 
 quench the raging thirst which the diet had excited, a cup was 
 slowly lowered down, which, when he eagerly grasped it, he 
 found to be empty ! Then they rolled the stone on the opening 
 in the vault, and left the captive to perish by thirst, the most 
 dreadful of all deaths. 
 
 Many similar stories could be told you of the wild wars of 
 the islanders; but these may suffice at present to give you 
 some idea of the fierceness of their manners, the low value at 
 which they held human life, the cruel manner in which wrongs 
 were revenged, and the unscrupulous violence by which pro- 
 perty was acquired. 
 
 The Hebrideans seem to have been accounted by King 
 James a race whom it was impossible to subdue, conciliate, or 
 improve by civilisation ; and the only remedy which occurred 
 to him was to settle Lowlauders in the islands, and drive away 
 or extirpate the people by whom they were inhabited. For 
 this purpose, the King authorised an association of many gentle- 
 men in the county of Fife, then the wealthiest and most civilised 
 part of Scotland, who undertook to make a settlement in the 
 isles of Lewis and Harris. These undertakers, as they were 
 called, levied money, assembled soldiers, and manned a fleet, 
 with which they landed on the Lewis, and effected a settlement 
 at Stornoway in that country, as they would have done in 
 establishing a colony on the desert shores of a distant continent. 
 
 At this time the property of the Lewis was disputed between 
 the sons of Rora MacLeod, the last lord, who had two families 
 by separate wives. The undertakers, finding the natives thus 
 quarrelling among themselves, had little difficulty in building 
 a small town and fortifying it ; and their enterprise in the 
 beginning assumed a promising appearance. But the Lord of 
 Kintail, chief of the numerous and powerful clan of MacKenzie, 
 was little disposed to let this fair island fall into the possession 
 27
 
 418 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XXXVIII 
 
 >f a company of Lowland adventurers. He had himself some 
 views of obtaining it in the name of Torquil Connaldagh 
 MacLeod, one of the Hebridean claimants, who was closely 
 connected with the family of MacKenzie, and disposed to act 
 as his powerful ally desired. Thus privately encouraged, the 
 islanders united themselves against the undertakers ; and, after 
 a war of various fortune, attacked their camp of Stornoway, 
 took it by storm, burnt the fort, slew many of them, and made 
 the rest prisoners. They were not expelled, you may be sure, 
 without bloodshed and massacre. Some of the old persons 
 still alive in the Lewis, talk of a very old woman, living in 
 their youth, who used to say that she had held the light while 
 her countrymen were cutting the throats of the Fife adventurers. 
 
 A lady, the wife of one of the principal gentlemen in the 
 expedition, fled from the scene of violence into a wild and path- 
 less desert of rock and morass, called the Forest of Fannig. 
 In this wilderness she became the mother of a child. A 
 Hebridean, who chanced to pass on one of the ponies of the 
 country, saw the mother and infant in the act of perishing with 
 cold, and being struck with the misery of their condition, con- 
 trived a strange manner of preserving them. He killed his 
 pony, and opening its belly, and removing the entrails, he put 
 the new-born infant and the helpless mother into the inside of 
 the carcass, to have the advantage of the warmth which this 
 strange and shocking receptacle for some time afforded. In 
 this manner, with or without assistance, he contrived to bear 
 them to some place of security, where the lady remained till 
 she could get back in safety to her own country. 
 
 The lady who experienced this remarkable deliverance 
 became afterwards, by a second marriage, the wife of a person 
 of consequence and influence in Edinburgh, a judge, I believe, 
 of the Court of Session. One evening, while she looked out of 
 the window of her house in the Canongate, just as a heavy 
 storm was coming on, she heard a man in the Highland dress 
 say in the Gaelic language, to another with whom he was 
 walking, "This would be a rough night for the Forest of 
 Fannig." The lady's attention was immediately attracted by 
 the name of a place which she had such awful reasons for 
 remembering, and, on looking attentively at the man who spoke, 
 she recognised her preserver. She called him into the house, 
 received him in the most cordial manner, and finding that he
 
 1590-1613 MASSACRE AT STORNOWAY 419 
 
 was come from the Western Islands on some law business of 
 great importance to his family, she interested her husband in 
 his favour, by whose influence it was speedily and successfully 
 settled ; and the Hebridean, loaded with kindness and presents, 
 returned to his native island, with reason to congratulate him- 
 self on the humanity which he had shown in so singular a 
 manner. 
 
 After the surprise of their fort, and the massacre of the de- 
 fenders, the Fife gentlemen tired of their undertaking ; and the 
 Lord of Kintail had the whole advantage of the dispute, for 
 he contrived to get possession of the Lewis for himself, and 
 transmitted it to his family, with whom it still remains. 
 
 It appears, however, that King James did not utterly despair 
 of improving the Hebrides, by means of colonisation. It was 
 supposed that the powerful Marquis of Huntly might have 
 been able to acquire the property, and had wealth enough to 
 pay the crown something for the grant. The whole archi- 
 pelago was offered to him, with the exception of Skye and 
 Lewis, at the cheap price of ten thousand pounds Scots, or 
 about 800 ; but the Marquis would not give more than half 
 the sum demanded, for what he justly considered as merely a 
 permission to conquer a sterile region, inhabited by a warlike 
 race. 
 
 Such was the ineffectual result of the efforts to introduce 
 some civilisation into these islands. In the next chapter we 
 shall show that the improvement of the Highlanders on the 
 mainland was not much more satisfactory. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 Contempt of the Highlanders for the Arts of Peace 
 Instances of their atrocity 
 
 THE size and position of the Highlands of Scotland rendered 
 them much less susceptible of improvement than the Border 
 districts, which, far less extensive, and less difficult of access, 
 were now placed between two civilised and peaceful countries, 
 instead of being the frontier of two hostile lands. 
 
 The Highlanders, on the contrary, continued the same series 
 of wars among themselves, and incursions upon their Lowland
 
 420 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. 
 
 neighbours, which had distinguished them ever since the dawn 
 of their history. Military adventure, in one form or other, 
 was their delight as well as their employment, and all works of 
 industry were considered as unworthy the dignity of a moun- 
 taineer. Even the necessary task of raising a scanty crop of 
 barley was assigned to the aged, and to the women and child- 
 ren. The men thought of nothing but hunting and war. I 
 will give you an account of a Highland chief tarn, in character 
 and practice not very different from that of Allan-a-Sop, the 
 Hebridean. 
 
 The Stewarts, who inhabited the district of Appin, in the 
 West Highlands, were a numerous and warlike clan. Appin 
 is the title of the chief of the clan. The second branch of the 
 family was that of Invernahyle. The founder, a second son of 
 the house of Appin, was called by the uncommon epithet of 
 Saioleach or the Peaceful. One of his neighbours was the 
 Lord of Dunstaffnage, called Cailen Uaine, or Green Colin, 
 from the green colour which predominated in his tartan. This 
 Green Colin surprised the peaceful Laird of Invernahyle, assas- 
 sinated him, burnt his house, and destroyed his whole family, 
 excepting an infant at the breast. This infant did not owe its 
 safety to the mercy of Green Colin, but to the activity and 
 presence of mind of its nurse. Finding she could not escape 
 the pursuit of that chiefs attendants, the faithful nurse deter- 
 mined to provide for the safety of her foster-child, whose life 
 she knew was aimed at, in the only manner which remained. 
 She therefore hid the infant in a small fissure, or cave, of a 
 rock, and as the only means she had of supplying him with 
 subsistence, hung by a string round his neck a large piece of 
 lard, in the faint hope that instinct might induce the child to 
 employ it as a means of subsistence. The poor woman had 
 only time to get a little way from the place where she had con- 
 cealed her charge, when she was made prisoner by the pursuers. 
 As she denied any knowledge where the child was, they dis- 
 missed her as a person of no consequence, but not until they 
 had kept her two or three days in close confinement, menacing 
 her with death unless she would discover what she had done 
 with the infant. 
 
 When she found herself at liberty and unobserved, she went 
 to the hole in which she had concealed her charge, with little 
 hope save of finding such relics as wolves, wild-cats, or birds
 
 XXXIX STATE OF THE HIGHLANDS 421 
 
 of prey might have left after feasting upon its flesh, but still 
 with the pious wish to consign the remains of her dault or 
 foster-child, to some place of Christian burial. But her joy 
 and surprise were extreme to find the infant still alive and well, 
 having lived during her absence by sucking the lard, which it 
 had reduced to a very small morsel, scarce larger than a hazel 
 nut. The delighted nurse made all haste to escape with her 
 charge to the neighbouring district of Moidart, of which she 
 was a native, being the wife of the smith of the clan of Mac- 
 Donald, to whom that country belonged The mother of the 
 infant thus miraculously rescued had also been a daughter of 
 this tribe. 
 
 To ensure the safety of her foster-child, the nurse persuaded 
 her husband to bring it up as their own son. The smith, you 
 must remark, of a Highland tribe, was a person of considerable 
 consequence. His skill in forging armour and weapons was 
 usually united with dexterity in using them, and with the 
 strength of body which his profession required. If I recollect 
 right, the smith usually ranked as third officer in the chiefs 
 household. The young Donald Stewart, as he grew up, was 
 distinguished for great personal strength. He became skilful 
 in his foster-father's art, and so powerful, that he could, it is 
 said, wield two fore -hammers, one in each hand, for hours 
 together. From this circumstance, he gained the name of 
 Donuil nan Ord, that is, Donald of the Hammer, by which 
 he was all his life distinguished. 
 
 When he attained the age of twenty-one, Donald's foster- 
 father, the smith, observing that his courage and enterprise 
 equalled his personal strength, thought fit to discover to him 
 the secret of his birth, the injuries which he had received from 
 Green Colin of Dunstaffnage, and the pretensions which he 
 had to the property of Invernahyle, now in the possession of 
 the man who had slain his father, and usurped his inheritance. 
 He concluded his discovery by presenting to his beloved foster- 
 child his own six sons to be his followers and defenders for life 
 and death, and his assistants in the recovery of his patrimony. 
 
 Law of every description was unknown in the Highlands. 
 Young Donald proceeded in his enterprise by hostile measures. 
 In addition to his six foster-brethren, he got some assistance 
 from his mother's kindred, and levied among the old adherents 
 of his father, and his kinsmen of the house of Appin, such
 
 422 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP 
 
 additional force, that he was able to give battle to Green Colin, 
 whom he defeated and slew, regaining at the same time his 
 father's house and estate of Invernahyle. This success had its 
 dangers ; for it placed the young chief in feud with all the 
 families of the powerful clan of Campbell, to which the slain 
 Dunstaffnage belonged by alliance at least ; for Green Colin 
 and his ancestors had assumed the name, and ranked themselves 
 under the banner, of this formidable clan, although originally 
 they were chieftains of a different and independent race. The 
 feud became more deadly, when, not satisfied with revenging 
 himself on the immediate authors of his early misfortune, 
 Donald made inroads on the Campbells in their own dominions ; 
 in evidence of which his historian quotes a verse to this pur- 
 pose 
 
 " Donald of the Smithy, the Son of the Hammer, 
 Filled the banks of Lochawe with mourning and clamour." 
 
 At length the powerful Earl of Argyle resented the repeated 
 injuries which were offered to his clansmen and kindred. The 
 Stewarts of Appin refused to support their kinsman against an 
 enemy so formidable, and insisted that he should seek for peace 
 with the Earl. So that Donald, left to himself, and sensible 
 that he was unable to withstand the force which might be 
 brought against him by this mighty chief, endeavoured to pro- 
 pitiate the Earl's favour by placing himself in his hands. 
 
 Stewart went, accordingly, with only a single attendant, 
 towards Inverary, the castle of Argyle, and met with the Earl 
 himself at some distance in the open fields. Donald of the 
 Hammer showed on this occasion that it was not fear which 
 had induced him to this step. Being a man of ready wit, and 
 a poet, which was an accomplishment high in the estimation of 
 the Highlanders, he opened the conference with an extempore 
 verse, which intimated a sort of defiance, rather like the lan- 
 guage of a man that cared not what might befall him, than 
 one who craved mercy or asked forgiveness. 
 
 " Son of dark Colin, thou dangerous earl, 
 
 Small is the boon that I crave at thy hand ; 
 Enough, if in safety from bondage and peril, 
 Thou let'st me return to my kindred and land. " 
 
 The Earl was too generous to avail himself of the advantage
 
 XXXIX DONALD OF THE HAMMER 423 
 
 which Invernahyle's confidence had afforded him, but he could 
 not abstain from maintaining the conversation thus begun, in 
 a gibing tone. Donuil nan Ord was harsh-featured, and had a 
 custom, allied to his mode of education, and the haughtiness 
 of his character, of throwing back his head, and laughing loudly 
 with his mouth wide open. In ridicule of this peculiarity, in 
 which Donald had indulged repeatedly, Argyle, or one of his 
 attendants, pointed out to his observation a rock in the neigh- 
 bourhood, which bore a singular resemblance to a human face, 
 with a large mouth much thrown back, and open as if kughing 
 a horse-laugh. " Do you see yonder crag ? " said the Earl to 
 Donald of the Hammer : " it is called Gaire Granda, or the 
 Ugly Laugh" Donald felt the intended gibe, and as Argyle's 
 lady was a hard-favoured and haughty woman, he replied, 
 without hesitation, in a verse like the following : 
 
 " Ugly the sneer of yon cliff of the hill, 
 
 Nature has stamp'd the grim laugh on the place ; 
 Would you seek for a grimmer and uglier still, 
 You will find it at home in your countess's face." 
 
 Argyle took the raillery of Donald in good part, but would 
 not make peace with him, until he agreed to make two creaghs, 
 or inroads, one on Moidart, and one on Athole. It seems prob- 
 able that the purpose of Argyle was to engage his troublesome 
 neighbour in a feud with other clans to whom he bore no good- 
 will ; for whether he of the Hammer fell or was successful, the 
 Earl, in either event, would gain a certain advantage. Donald 
 accepted peace with the Campbells on these terms. 
 
 On his return home, Donald communicated to MacDonald 
 of Moidart the engagement he had come under; and that 
 chieftain, his mother's kinsman and ally, concerted that Inver- 
 nahyle and his baud should plunder certain villages in Moidart, 
 the inhabitants of which had offended him, and on whom he 
 desired chastisement should be inflicted. The incursion of 
 Donald the Hammerer punished them to some purpose, and 
 so far he fulfilled his engagement to Argyle, without making 
 an enemy of his own kinsman. With the Athole men, as 
 more distant and unconnected with him, Donald stood on less 
 ceremony, and made more than one successful creagh upon 
 them. His name was now established as one of the most for- 
 midable marauders known in the Highlands, and a very bloody
 
 424 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP, 
 
 action which he sustained against the family of the Grahams 
 of Monteith, made him still more dreaded. 
 
 The Earls of Monteith, you must know, had a castle situ- 
 ated upon an island in the lake, or loch, as it is called, of the 
 same name. But though this residence, which occupied almost 
 the whole of the islet upon which its ruins still exist, was a 
 strong and safe place of abode, and adapted accordingly to such 
 perilous times, it had this inconvenience, that the stables, 
 cow-houses, poultry-yard, and other domestic offices, were 
 necessarily separated from the castle, and situated on the 
 mainland, as it would have been impossible to be constantly 
 transporting the animals belonging to the establishment to 
 and fro from the shore to the island. These offices, therefore, 
 were constructed on the banks of the lake, and in some sort 
 defenceless. 
 
 It happened upon a time that there was to be a great enter- 
 tainment in the castle, and a number of the Grahams were 
 assembled. The occasion, it is said, was a marriage in the 
 family. To prepare for this feast, much provision was got 
 ready, and in particular a great deal of poultry had been col- 
 lected. While the feast was preparing, an unhappy chance 
 brought Donald of the Hammer to the side of the lake, re- 
 turning at the head of a band of hungry followers, whom he 
 was conducting homewards to the West Highlands, after some 
 of his usual excursions into Stirlingshire. Seeing so much 
 good victuals ready, and being possessed of an excellent appe- 
 tite, the Western Highlanders neither asked questions, nor 
 waited for an invitation, but devoured all the provisions that 
 had been prepared for the Grahams, and then went on their 
 way rejoicing, through the difficult and dangerous path which 
 leads from the banks of the loch of Monteith, through the 
 mountains, to the side of loch Katrine. 
 
 The Grahams were filled with the highest indignation. No 
 one in those fierce times was so contemptible as an individual 
 who would suffer himself to be plundered without exacting 
 satisfaction and revenge, and the loss of their dinner probably 
 aggravated the sense of the insults entertained by the guests. 
 The company who were assembled at the castle of Monteith, 
 headed by the Earl himself, hastily took to their boats, and, 
 disembarking on the northern side of the lake, pursued with 
 all speed the marauders and their loader. They came up with
 
 XXXIX DONALD OF THE HAMMER 425 
 
 Donald's party in the gorge of a pass, near a rock called Craig- 
 Vad, or the Wolf's Cliff. Here the Grahams called, with loud 
 insults, on the Appin men to stand, and one of them, in allusion 
 to the execution which had been done amongst the poultry, 
 exclaimed in verse 
 
 "They're brave gallants, these Appin men, 
 To twist the throat of cock and hen ? " 
 
 Donald instantly replied to the reproach 
 
 " And if we be of Appin's line, 
 We'll twist a goose's neck in thine." 
 
 So saying, he shot the unlucky scoffer with an arrow. The 
 battle then began, and was continued with much fury till night. 
 The Earl of Monteith and many of his noble kinsmen fell, 
 while Donald, favoured by darkness, escaped with a single 
 attendant. The Grahams obtained, from the cause of the 
 quarrel, the nickname of Gramoch an Garrigh, or Grahams 
 of the Hens : although they certainly lost no honour in the 
 encounter, having fought like game-cocks. 
 
 Donald of the Hammer was twice married. His second 
 marriage was highly displeasing to his eldest son, whom he 
 had by his first wife. This young man, whose name was 
 Duncan, seems to have partaken rather of the disposition of his 
 grandfather, Alister Sa&ileach, or the Peaceful, than of the 
 turbulent spirit of his father the Hammerer. He quitted the 
 family mansion in displeasure at his father's second marriage, 
 and went to a farm called Inverfalla, which his father had be- 
 stowed upon his nurse in reward for her eminent services. 
 Duncan took up his abode with this valued connection of the 
 family, who was now in the extremity of old age, and amused 
 himself with attempting to improve the cultivation of the 
 farm ; a task which not only was considered as below the dig- 
 nity of a Highland gentleman, but even regarded as the last 
 degree of degradation. 
 
 The idea of his son's occupying himself with agricultural 
 operations struck so much shame and anger into the heart of 
 Donald the Hammerer, that his resentment against him became 
 ungovernable. At length, as he walked by his own side of the 
 river, and looked towards Inverfalla, he saw, to his extreme 
 displeasure, a number of men employed in digging and levelling
 
 426 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. 
 
 the soil for some intended crop. Soou after, he had the addi- 
 tional mortification to see his son come out and mingle with the 
 workmen, as if giving them directions ; and, finally, beheld him 
 take the spade out of an awkward fellow's hand, and dig a little 
 himself to show him how to use it. This last act of degeneracy 
 drove the Hammerer frantic; he seized a curragh, or boat 
 covered with hides, which was near, jumped into it, and pushed 
 across the stream, with the determination of destroying the 
 son who had, in his opinion, brought such unutterable dis- 
 grace upon his family. The poor agriculturist seeing his 
 father approach in such haste, and having a shrewd guess of 
 the nature of his parental intentions, fled into the house and 
 hid himself. Donald followed with his drawn weapon ; but, 
 deceived by passion and darkness, he plunged his sword into 
 the body of one whom he saw lying on the bed-clothes. In- 
 stead of his son, for whom the blow was intended, it lighted 
 on the old foster-mother, to whom he owed his life in infancy 
 and education in youth, and slew her on the spot. After this 
 misfortune, Donald became deeply affected with remorse ; and 
 giving up all his estates to his children, he retired to the 
 Abbey of St. Columba, in lona, passed the remainder of his 
 days as a monk, and died at the age of eighty-seven. 
 
 It may easily be believed, that there was little peace and 
 quiet in a country abounding with such men as the Hammerer, 
 who thought the practice of honest industry on the part of a 
 gentleman was an act of degeneracy, for which nothing short 
 of death was an adequate punishment ; so that the disorderly 
 state of the Highlands was little short of that of the Isles. 
 Still, however, many of the principal chiefs attended occasion- 
 ally at the court of Scotland ; others were frequently obliged 
 to send their sons to be educated there, who were retained as 
 hostages for the peaceable behaviour of the clan ; so that by 
 degrees they came to improve with the increasing civilisation 
 of the times. 
 
 The authority also of the great nobles, who held estates in 
 or adjacent to the Highlands, was a means, though a rough 
 one, of making the district over which they exercised their 
 power, submit, in a certain degree, to the occasional influence 
 of the laws. It is true, that the great Earls of Huntly, Argyle, 
 Sutherland, and other nobles did not enforce the Lowland 
 institutions upon their Highland vassals out of mere zeal for
 
 XXXIX HUNTLY AND MACINTOSH 427 
 
 their civilisation, but rather because, by taking care to secure 
 the power of the sovereign and the laws on their own side, 
 they could make the infraction of them by the smaller chiefs 
 the pretext for breaking down the independent clans, and 
 making them submit to their own authority. 
 
 I will give you an example of the manner in which a noble 
 lady chastised a Highland chief in the reign of James the Sixth. 
 The Head of the House of Gordon, then Marquis of Huntly, 
 was by far the most powerful lord in the northern counties 
 and exercised great influence over the Highland clans who 
 inhabited the mountains of Badenoch, which lay behind his 
 extensive domains. One of the most ancient tribes situated 
 in and near that district is that of Macintosh, a word which 
 means Child of the Thane, as they boast their descent from 
 Macduff, the celebrated Thane of Fife. This haughty race 
 having fallen at variance with the Gordons, William Macintosh, 
 their chief, carried his enmity to so great a pitch, as to 
 surprise and burn the castle of Auchindown, belonging to the 
 Gordon family. The Marquis of Huntly vowed the severest 
 vengeance. He moved against the Macintoshes with his own 
 followers; and he let loose upon the devoted tribe all such 
 neighbouring clans as would do anything, as the old phrase 
 was, for his love or for his fear. Macintosh, after a short 
 struggle, found himself unequal to sustain the conflict, and saw 
 that he must either behold his clan totally exterminated, or 
 contrive some mode of pacifying Huntly's resentment. The 
 idea of the first alternative was not to be endured, and of the 
 last he saw no chance, save by surrendering himself into the 
 power of the Marquis, and thus personally atoning for the 
 offence which he had committed. To perform this act of 
 generous devotion with as much chance of safety as possible, he 
 chose a time when the Marquis himself was absent, and asking 
 for the lady, whom he judged likely to prove less inexorable 
 than her husband, he presented himself as the unhappy Laird 
 of Macintosh, who came to deliver himself up to the Gordon, 
 to answer for his burning of Auchindown, and only desired 
 that Huntly would spare his clan. The Marchioness, a stern 
 and haughty woman, had shared deeply in her husband's resent- 
 ment. She regarded Macintosh with a keen eye, as the hawk 
 or eagle contemplates the prey within its clutch, aud having 
 spoken a word aside to her attendants, replied to the suppliant
 
 428 TALKS OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. 
 
 chief in this manner: "Macintosh, you have offended the 
 Gordon so deeply, that Huntly has sworn by his father's soul, 
 that he will never pardon you, till he has brought your neck 
 to the block," "I will stoop even to that humiliation, to secure 
 the safety of my father's house," said Macintosh. And as this 
 interview passed in the kitchen of the castle at Bog of Gicht, 
 he undid the collar of his doublet, and kneeling down before 
 the huge block on which, in the rude hospitality of the time, 
 the slain bullocks and sheep were broken up for use, he laid his 
 neck upon it, expecting, doubtless, that the lady would be 
 satisfied with this token of unreserved submission. But the 
 inexorable Marchioness made a sign to the cook, who stepped 
 forward with his hatchet raised, and struck Macintosh's head 
 from his body. 
 
 Another story, and I will change the subject. It is also of 
 the family of Gordon ; not that they were by any means more 
 hard-hearted than other Scottish barons, who had feuds with 
 the Highlanders, but because it is the readiest which occurs to 
 my recollection. The Farquharsons of Deeside, a bold and 
 warlike people, inhabiting the dales of Braemar, had taken 
 offence at, and slain, a gentleman of consequence, named 
 Gordon of Brackley. The Marquis of Huntly summoned his 
 forces, to take a bloody vengeance for the death of a Gordon ; 
 and that none of the guilty tribe might escape, communicated 
 with the Laird of Grant, a very powerful chief, who was an 
 ally of Huntly, and a relation, I believe, to the slain Baron of 
 Brackley. They agreed, that, on a day appointed, Grant, with 
 his clan in arms, should occupy the upper end of the vale of 
 Dee, and move from thence downwards, while the Gordons 
 should ascend the river from beneath, each party killing, burn- 
 ing, and destroying, without mercy, whatever and whomever 
 they found before them. A terrible massacre was made of the 
 Farquharsons, taken at unawares, and placed betwixt two ene- 
 mies. Almost all the men and women of the race were slain, 
 and when the day was done, Huutly found himself encumbered 
 with about two hundred orphan children, whose parents had 
 been killed. What became of them you shall presently hear. 
 
 About a year after this foray, the Laird of Grant chanced to 
 dine at the Marquis's castle. He was, of course, received with 
 kindness, and entertained with magnificence. After dinner 
 was over, Huntly said to his guest, that he would show him
 
 XXXIX 
 
 HTJNTLY AND GRANT 429 
 
 some rare sport. Accordingly, he conducted Grant to a bal- 
 cony, which, as was frequent in old mansions, overlooked the 
 kitchen, perhaps to permit the lady to give an occasional eye 
 to the operations there. The numerous servants of the Mar- 
 quis and his visitors had already dined, and Grant beheld the 
 remains of the victuals which had furnished a plentiful meal 
 flung at random into a large trough, like that out of which 
 swine feed. While Grant was wondering what this could mean, 
 the master cook gave a signal with his silver whistle ; on which 
 a hatch, like that of a dog kennel, was raised, and there rushed 
 into the kitchen, some shrieking, some shouting, some yelling 
 not a pack of hounds, which, in number, noise, and tumult, 
 they greatly resembled, but a huge mob of children, half naked, 
 and totally wild in their manners, who threw themselves on the 
 contents of the trough, and fought, struggled, bit, scratched, 
 and clamoured, each to get the largest share. Grant was a 
 man of humanity, and did not see in that degrading scene all 
 the amusement which his noble host had intended to afford 
 him. " In the name of Heaven," he said, who are these 
 unfortunate creatures that are fed like so many pigs ? " " They 
 are the children of those Farquharsons whom we slew last year 
 on Dee side," answered Huntly. The Laird felt more shocked 
 than it would have been prudent or polite to express. " My 
 Lord," he said, " my sword helped to make these poor children 
 orphans, and it is not fair that your Lordship should be 
 burdened with all the expense of maintaining them. You 
 have supported them for a year and day allow me now to 
 take them to Castle Grant, and keep them for the same period 
 at my cost. Huntly was tired of the joke of the pig-trough, and 
 willingly consented to have the undisciplined rabble of children 
 taken off his hands. He troubled himself no more about them ; 
 and the Laird of Grant, carrying them to his castle, had them 
 dispersed among his clan, and brought up decently, giving 
 them his own name of Grant ; but it is said their descendants 
 are still called the Race of the Trough, to distinguish them 
 from the families of the tribe into which they were adopted. 
 
 These are instances of the severe authority exercised by the 
 great barons over their Highland neighbours and vassals. Still 
 that authority produced a regard to the laws, which they would 
 not otherwise have received. These mighty lords, though pos- 
 sessed of great power in their jurisdictions, never effected entire
 
 430 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. 
 
 independence, as had been done by the old Lords of the Isles, 
 who made peace and war with England, without the consent 
 of the King of Scotland. On the contrary, Argyle, Huntly, 
 Murray, and others, always used at least the pretext of the 
 King's name and authority, and were, from habit and education, 
 less apt to practise wild stretches of arbitrary power than the 
 native chiefs of the Highlands. In proportion, therefore, as 
 the influence of the nobles increased, the country approached 
 more nearly to civilisation. 
 
 It must not here be forgotten, that the increase of power 
 acquired by the sovereign, in the person of James VI., was felt 
 severely by one of his great feudal lords, for exercising violence 
 and oppression, even in the most distant extremity of the empire. 
 The Earl of Orkney, descended from a natural son of James V., 
 and of course a cousin-german of the reigning monarch, had 
 indulged himself in extravagant excesses of arbitrary authority 
 amongst the wild recesses of the Orkney and Zetland islands. 
 He had also, it was alleged, shown some token of a wish 
 to assume sovereign power, and had caused his natural son 
 to defend the castle of Kirkwall, by force of arms, against 
 the King's troops. Mr. Littlejohn is now something of a 
 Latin scholar, and he will understand, that this wicked Earl 
 of Orkney's ignorance of that language exposed him to two 
 disgraceful blunders. When he had built the great tower of 
 Scalloway in Zetland, he asked a clergyman for a motto, who 
 supplied him with the following Latin words : 
 
 " Cujua fundamen saxura est, domus ilia inanebit 
 Stabilis ; et contra, si sit arena, pent." 
 
 The Earl was highly pleased with this motto, not understand- 
 ing that the secret meaning implied, that a house, raised by 
 honourable and virtuous means, was as durable as if founded 
 upon a rock ; whereas one like bis new castle of Scalloway, 
 constructed by injustice and oppressive means, was like one 
 founded on the faithless sands, and would soon perish. It is 
 now a waste ruin, and bears the defaced inscription as if 
 prophetic of the event. 
 
 A worse error was that which occurred in the motto over 
 another castle on the island of Birsa, in Orkney, built by his 
 father and repaired by himself Here he was pleased to inscribe 
 his father's name and descent thus : ROBEKTUS STUARTUS,
 
 xxxix EARL OF ORKNEY 431 
 
 FILIUS JACOBI QUINTI, REX SCOTORUM, HOC EDIFICIUM 
 INSTRUXIT. Sic FUIT, EST, ET, ERIT. It was probably only 
 the meaning of this inscription to intimate, that Earl Robert 
 was the son of James V., King of Scotland, which was an 
 undeniable truth ; but putting Rex in the nominative instead 
 of Regis, in the genitive, as the construction required, Earl 
 Patrick seemed to state that his father had been the King of 
 Scotland, and was gravely charged with high treason for 
 asserting such a proposition. 
 
 If this was rather a severe punishment for false Latin, it 
 must be allowed that Earl Patrick deserved his condemnation 
 by repeated acts of the greatest cruelty and oppression on the 
 defenceless inhabitants of those remote islands. He was held 
 in such terror by them, that one person who was brought as a 
 witness against him, refused to answer any question till he had 
 received a solemn assurance that the Earl would never be 
 permitted to return to Orkney. Being positively assured of 
 this, he gave such a detail of his usurpation and crimes as 
 made his guilt fully manifest. 
 
 For these oifences the Earl was tried and executed at 
 Edinburgh ; and his punishment struck such terror 
 among the aristocracy, as made even those great 
 lords, whose power lay in the most distant and 
 inaccessible places of Scotland, disposed to be amenable to the 
 royal authority. 
 
 Having thus discussed the changes effected by the union of 
 the crowns on the Borders, Highlands, and Isles, it remains to 
 notice the effects produced in the Lowlands, or more civilised 
 parts of the kingdom. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Injurious Effects to Scotland oj the Removal of the Court to London 
 State of the Laws The Clergy The Schools James VI.'s Visit to 
 Scotland in 1617 his Death his Children 
 
 THE Scottish people were soon made sensible, that if their 
 courtiers and great men made fortunes by King James's favour, 
 the nation at large was not enriched by the union of the 
 crowns. Edinburgh was no longer the residence of a court,
 
 432 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XL 
 
 whose expenditure, though very moderate, was diffused among 
 her merchants and citizens, and was so far of importance. The 
 sons of the gentry and better classes, whose sole trade had been 
 war and battle, were deprived of employment by the general 
 peace with England, and the nation was likely to feel all the 
 distress arising from an excess of population. 
 
 To remedy the last evil, the wars on the Continent afforded 
 a resource peculiarly fitted to the genius of the Scots, who 
 have always had a disposition for visiting foreign parts. The 
 celebrated Thirty Years' War, as it was called, was now raging 
 in Germany, and a large national brigade of Scots was engaged 
 in the service of Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, one of 
 the most successful generals of the age. Their total numbers 
 may be guessed from those of the superior officers, which 
 amounted to thirty -four colonels, and fifty lieutenant -colonels. 
 The similarity of the religion of the Scots with that of the 
 Swedes, and some congenial resemblances betwixt the two 
 nations, as well as the high fame of Gustavus, made most of 
 the Scots prefer the service of Sweden ; but there were others 
 who went into that of the Emperor of Austria, of France, of 
 the Italian States, in short, they were dispersed as soldiers 
 throughout all Europe. It was not uncommon, when a party 
 of Scots was mounting a breach, for them to hear some of the 
 defenders call out in the Scottish language, " Come on, gentle- 
 men ; this is not like gallanting it at the Cross of Edinburgh !" 
 and thus learn that they were opposed to some of their 
 countrymen engaged on the opposite side. The taste for 
 foreign service was so universal, that young gentlemen of 
 family, who wished to see the world, used to travel on the 
 Continent from place to place, and from province to province, 
 and defray their expenses by engaging for a few weeks or 
 months in military service in the garrison or guards of the 
 state in which they made their temporary residence. It is but 
 doing the Scots justice to say, that while thus acting as 
 mercenary soldiers, they acquired a high character for courage, 
 military skill, and a faithful adherence to their engagements. 
 The Scots regiments in the Swedish service were the first 
 troops who employed platoon firing, by which they contributed 
 greatly to achieve the victory in the decisive battle of Lutzen. 
 
 Besides the many thousand Scottish emigrants who pursued 
 the trade of war on the Continent, there was another numerous
 
 1603-17 SCOTSMEN ABROAD 433 
 
 class who undertook the toilsome and precarious task of travel- 
 ling merchants, or to speak plainly, of pedlars, and were 
 employed in conducting the petty inland commerce, which 
 gave the inhabitants of Germany, Poland, and the northern 
 parts of Europe in general, opportunities of purchasing articles 
 of domestic convenience. There were at that time few towns, 
 and in these towns there were few shops regularly open. When 
 an inhabitant of the country, of high or low degree, wished to 
 purchase any article of dress or domestic convenience which he 
 did not manufacture himself, he was obliged to attend at the 
 next fair, to which the travelling merchants flocked, in order 
 to expose their goods to sale. Or if the buyer did not choose 
 to take that trouble, he must wait till some pedlar, who carried 
 his goods on horseback, in a small wain, or perhaps in a 
 pack upon his shoulders, made his wandering journey through 
 the country. It has been made matter of ridicule against the 
 Scots, that this traffic fell into their hands, as a frugal, patient, 
 provifleut, and laborious people, possessing some share of edu- 
 cation, which we shall presently see was now becoming general 
 among them. But we cannot think that the business which 
 required such attributes to succeed in it, could be dishonourable 
 to those who pursued it ; and we believe that those Scots who, 
 in honest commerce, supplied foreigners with the goods they 
 required, were at least as well employed as those who assisted 
 them in killing each other. 1 
 
 While the Scots thus continued to improve their condition 
 by enterprise abroad, they gradually sank into peaceful habits 
 at home. In the wars of Queen Mary's time, and those of 
 
 1 In the Fortunes of Nigel, King James is introduced as saying, " It 
 would be as unseemly for a packman, or pedlar, as ye call a travelling- 
 merchant, whilk is a trade to which our native subjects of Scotland are 
 specially addicted, to be blazing his genealogy in the faces of those to 
 whom he sells a bawbee's worth of ribbon, as it would be to him to have 
 a beaver on his head, and a rapier by his side, when the pack was on his 
 shoulders. Na, na he hings his sword on the cleek, lays his beaver on 
 the shelf, puts his pedigree into his pocket, and gangs as doucely and 
 canuily about his pedling craft as if his blood was nae better than 
 ditch-water ; but let our pedlar be transformed, as I have kend it happen 
 iiiuir than aince, into a beiii thriving merchant, then ye shall have a 
 transformation, my lads. 
 
 In nova fert animus umtatus diccre formas. 
 
 Out he pulls his pedigree, on he buckles his sword, gives his beaver a 
 brush, and cocks it in the face of all creation. " 
 
 28
 
 434 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XL 
 
 King James's minority, we have the authority of a great 
 lawyer, the first Earl of Haddingtou, generally known by the 
 name of Tom of the Cowgate, to assure us, that " the whole 
 country was so miserably distracted, not only by the accus- 
 tomed barbarity of the Highlands and Borders, which was 
 greatly increased, but by the cruel dissensions arising from 
 public factions and private feuds, that men of every rank daily 
 wore steel-jacks, knapscaps or head-pieces, plate -sleeves, and 
 pistols and poniards, being as necessary parts of their apparel 
 as their doublets and breeches." Their disposition was, of 
 course, as warlike as their dress; and the same authority 
 informs us, that whatever was the cause of their assemblies or 
 meetings, fights and affrays were the necessary consequence 
 before they separated ; and this not at parliaments, conventions, 
 trystes, and markets only, but likewise in churchyards, churches, 
 and places appointed for the exercise of religion. 
 
 This universal state of disorder was not owing to any want 
 of laws against such enormities ; on the contrary, the Scottish 
 legislature was more severe than that of England, accounting 
 as murder the killing of any one in a sudden quarrel, without 
 previous malice, which offence the law of England rated under 
 the milder denomination of manslaughter. And this severity 
 was introduced into the law, expressly to restrain the peculiarly 
 furious temper of the Scottish nation. It was not, therefore, 
 laws which were awanting to restrain violence, but the regular 
 and due execution of such as existed. An ancient Scottish 
 statesman and judge, who was also a poet, has alluded to the 
 means used to save the guilty from deserved punishment. 
 " We are allowed some skill," he says, " in making good laws, 
 but God knows how ill they are kept and enforced ; since a 
 man accused of a crime will frequently appear at the bar of the 
 court to which he is summoned, with such a company of armed 
 friends at his back, as if it were his purpose to defy and 
 intimidate both judge and jury." The interest of great men, 
 moreover, obtained often by bribes, interposed between a 
 criminal and justice, and saved by court favour the life which 
 was forfeited to the laws. 
 
 James made great reformation in these particulars, as soon 
 as his power, increased by the union of the two kingdoms, 
 gave him the means of doiug so. The laws, as we have seen 
 in more cases than one, were enforced with greater severity,
 
 1603-17 STATE OF THE LAWS 435 
 
 and the assistance of powerful friends, nay, the interposition 
 of courtiers and favourites, was less successful in interfering 
 with the course of justice, or obtaining remissions and pardons 
 for condemned criminals. Thus the wholesome terror of jus- 
 tice gradually imposed a restraint on the general violence and 
 disorder which had followed the civil wars of Scotland. Still, 
 however, as the barons held, by means of their hereditary 
 jurisdictions, the exclusive right to try and to punish such 
 crimes as were committed on their own estates ; and as they 
 often did not choose to do so, either because the action had 
 been committed by the baron's own direction ; or that the 
 malefactor was a strong and active partisan, of whose service 
 the lord might have need ; or because the judge and criminal 
 stood in some degree of relationship to each other ; in all such 
 cases, the culprit's escape from justice was a necessary conse- 
 quence. Nevertheless, viewing Scotland generally, the pro- 
 gress of public justice at the commencement of the seventeenth 
 century was much purer, and less liable to interruption than 
 in former ages, and the disorders of the country were fewer in 
 proportion. 
 
 The law and its terrors had its effect in preventing the fre- 
 quency of crime ; but it could not have been in the power of 
 mere human laws, and the punishments which they enacted, to 
 eradicate from the national feelings the proneness to violence, 
 and the thirst of revenge, which had been so long a general 
 characteristic of the Scottish people. The heathenish and 
 accursed custom of deadly feud, or the duty, as it was thought, 
 of exacting blood for blood, and perpetuating a chance quarrel, 
 by handing it down to future generations, could only give place 
 to those pure religious doctrines which teach men to practise, 
 not the revenge, but the forgiveness of injuries, as the only 
 means of acquiring the favour of Heaven. 
 
 The Presbyterian preachers, in throwing away the external 
 pomp and ceremonial of religious worship, had inculcated, in 
 its place, the most severe observation of morality. It was ob- 
 jected to them, indeed, that, as in their model of Church govern- 
 ment, the Scottish clergy claimed an undue influence over 
 state affaire, so, in their professions of doctrine and practice, 
 they verged towards an ascetic system, in which too much weight 
 was laid on venial transgressions, and the opinions of other 
 Christian churches were treated with too little liberality. But
 
 436 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XL 
 
 no one who considers their works, and their history, can deny 
 to those respectable men the merit of practising, in the most 
 rigid extent, the strict doctrines of morality which they taught. 
 They despised wealth, shunned even harmless pleasures, and 
 acquired the love of their flocks, by attending to their temporal 
 as well as spiritual wants. They preached what they them- 
 selves seriously believed, and they were believed because they 
 spoke with all the earnestness of conviction. They spared 
 neither example nor precept to improve the more ignorant of 
 their hearers, and often endangered their own lives in attempt- 
 ing to put a stop to the feuds and frays which daily occurred in 
 their bounds. It is recorded of a worthy clergyman, whose 
 parish was peculiarly distracted by the brawls of the quarrel- 
 some inhabitants, that he used constantly to wear a stout steel 
 head-piece, which bore an odd appearance contrasted with his 
 clerical dress. The purpose was, that when he saw swords 
 drawn in the street, which was almost daily, he might run be- 
 tween the combatants, and thus separate them, with less risk 
 of being killed by a chance blow. So that his venturous 
 and dauntless humanity was perpetually placing his life in 
 danger. 
 
 The clergy of that day were frequently respectable from 
 their birth and connections, often from their learning, and at 
 all times from their character. These qualities enabled them 
 to interfere with effect, even in the feuds of the barons and 
 gentry ; and they often brought to milder and more peaceful 
 thoughts, men who would not have listened to any other in- 
 tercessors. There is no doubt that these good men, and the 
 Christianity which they taught, were the principal means of 
 correcting the furious temper and revengeful habits of the 
 Scottish nation, in whose eyes bloodshed and deadly vengeance 
 had been till then a virtue. 
 
 Besides the precepts and examples of religion and morality, 
 the encouragement of general information and knowledge is 
 also an effectual mode of taming and subduing the wild habits 
 of a military and barbarous people. For this also the Lowlands 
 of Scotland were indebted to the Presbyterian ministers. 
 
 The Catholic clergy had been especially instrumental in the 
 foundation of three universities in Scotland, namely, those of 
 Glasgow, St. Andrews, and Aberdeen ; but these places of 
 education, from the very nature of their institutions were
 
 1603-17 THE CLERGY 437 
 
 only calculated for the education of students designed for the 
 Church, or of those youths from among the higher classes of 
 the laity, whom their parents desired should receive such in- 
 formation as might qualify them for lawyers and statesmen. 
 The more noble view of the Reformed Church was to extend 
 the blessings of knowledge to the lower, as well as the higher 
 classes of society. 
 
 The preachers of the Reformation had appealed to the 
 Scriptures as the rule of their doctrine, and it was their hon- 
 ourable and liberal wish, that the poorest, as well as the richest 
 man, should have an opportunity of judging, by his own 
 perusal of the sacred volume, whether they had interpreted the 
 text truly and faithfully. The invention of printing had made 
 the Scriptures accessible to every one, and the clergy desired 
 that the meanest peasant should be capable of reading them. 
 John Knox, and other leaders had, from the very era of the 
 Reformation, pressed the duty of reserving from the confiscated 
 revenues of the Romish Church the means of providing for 
 the clergy with decency, and of establishing colleges and 
 schools for the education of youth ; but their wishes were for 
 a long time disappointed by the avarice of the nobility and 
 gentry, who were determined to retain for their own use the 
 spoils of the Catholic establishment, and by the stormy com- 
 plexion of the times, in which little was regarded save what 
 belonged to politics and war. 
 
 At length the legislature, chiefly by the influence of the clergy, 
 was induced to authorise the noble enactment, which appoints 
 a school to be kept in every parish of Scotland, at a low rate 
 of endowment indeed, but such as enables every poor man 
 within the parish to procure for his children the knowledge of 
 reading and writing ; and affords an opportunity for those in- 
 dividuals who show a decided taste for learning, to obtain such 
 progress in classical knowledge as may fit them for college 
 studies. There can be no doubt that the opportunity afforded 
 of procuring instruction thus easily tended, in the course of a 
 generation, greatly to civilise and humanise the character of 
 the Scottish nation ; and it is equally certain, that this general 
 access to useful knowledge, has not only given rise to the suc- 
 cess of many men of genius, who otherwise would never have 
 aspired above the humble rank in which they were born, but 
 has raised the common people of Scotland in general, in know-
 
 438 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XL 
 
 ledge, sagacity, and intelligence, many degrees above those of 
 most other countries. 
 
 The Highlands and Islands did not share the influence of 
 religion and education, which so essentially benefited their 
 Lowland countrymen, owing to their speaking a language dif- 
 ferent from the rest of Scotland, as well as to the difficulty, or 
 rather at that time the impossibility, of establishing churches 
 or schools in such a remote country, and amongst natives of 
 such wild manners. 
 
 To the reign of James VI. it is only necessary to add, that 
 in 1617 he revisited his ancient kingdom of Scotland, from 
 the same instinct, as his Majesty was pleased to express it, 
 which induces salmon, after they have visited the sea, to return 
 to the river in which they have been bred. 
 
 He was received with every appearance of affection by his 
 Scottish subjects ; and the only occasion of suspicion, doubt, 
 or quarrel, betwixt the King and them, arose from the partiality 
 he evinced to the form and ritual of the Church of England. 
 The true Presbyterians groaned heavily at seeing choristers and 
 singing boys arrayed in white surplices, and at hearing them 
 chant the service of the Church of England ; and they were 
 in despair when they saw his Majesty's private chapel adorned 
 with pictures representing scriptural subjects. All this, and 
 everything like an established and prescribed form in prayer, 
 in garb or decoration, was, in their idea, a greater or less 
 approximation to the practices of the Church of Rome. This 
 was, indeed, mere prejudice, but it was a prejudice of little 
 consequence in itself, and James ought to have rather respected 
 than combated feelings connected with much that was both 
 moral and religious, and honoured the right which his Scottish 
 subjects might justly claim to worship God after their own 
 manner, and not according to the rules and ceremonies of a 
 foreign country. His obstinacy on this point was, however, 
 satisfied with carrying through the Articles of Perth, already 
 mentioned, which were finally admitted in the year after his 
 visit to Scotland. He left to his successor the task of en- 
 deavouring to accomplish a complete conformity, in ritual and 
 doctrine, between the churches of South and North Britain 
 and very dear the attempt cost him. 
 
 James died at Theobalds on the 27th March 1625, in the 
 fifty-ninth year of his age, and the twenty-second after his
 
 1603-17 DEATH OF JAMES VI. 439 
 
 accession to the throne of England. He was the least digni- 
 fied and accomplished of all bis family ; but, at the same time, 
 the most fortunate. 1 Robert II., the first of the Stewart 
 family, died, it is true, in peace ; but Robert III. had sunk 
 under the family losses which he had sustained ; James I. was 
 murdered ; James II. killed by the bursting of a cannon ; 
 James III. (whom James VI. chiefly resembled) was privately 
 slain after the battle of Sauchie-Burn ; James IV. fell at 
 Flodden ; James V. died of a broken heart ; Henry Darnley, 
 the father of James VI. was treacherously murdered ; and his 
 mother, Queen Mary, was tyrannically beheaded. He alone, 
 without courage, without sound sagacity, without that feeling 
 of dignity which should restrain a prince from foolish indul- 
 gences, became King of the great nation which had for ages 
 threatened to subdue that of which he was born monarch ; and 
 the good fortune of the Stewart family, which seems to have 
 existed in his person alone, declined and totally decayed in 
 those of his successors. 
 
 James had lost his eldest son, Henry, a youth of extra- 
 
 i ' ' The character of James was rendered a subject of doubt amongst hia 
 contemporaries, and bequeathed as a problem to future historians. He 
 was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge ; sagacious in 
 many individual cases, without having real wisdom ; fond of his power, 
 and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction 
 of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites ; a big and bold 
 assertor of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on 
 in deeds ; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted ; and 
 one who feared war, when conquest might have been easy. He was fond 
 of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity ; 
 capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest 
 amusement ; a wit, though a pedant ; and a scholar, though fond of 
 the conversation of the ignorant and the uneducated. Even his timidity 
 of temper was not uniform ; and there were moments of his life, and those 
 critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious 
 in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required ; devout in his 
 sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language ; just and beneficent 
 by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He 
 was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own 
 hands, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which ho did 
 not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in 
 particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and 
 comprehensive to regulate his general conduct ; and, showing themselves 
 as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on 
 him by Sully that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. " The 
 Fortunes of Nigel, Chap. v.
 
 440 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLI 
 
 ordinary promise. His second, Charles I., succeeded him in the 
 throne. He left also one daughter, Elizabeth, married to 
 Frederick, the Elector Palatine of the German empire. He 
 was an unfortunate prince, and with a view of obtaining the 
 kingdom of Bohemia, engaged in a ruinous war with the 
 Emperor, by which he lost his hereditary dominions. But the 
 Elector's evil fortune was redeemed in the person of his de- 
 scendants, from whom sprung the royal family which now 
 possess the British throne, in right of the Princess Elizabeth. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI 
 
 Discontents excited during James's Reign increased under Charles 
 The Scottish Army enters England and defeats the King's Forces 
 at Newburn Charles visits Scotland Civil War in England 
 
 SOVEREIGN OF FRANCE, Louis XIII. 
 16251643 
 
 CHARLES I., who succeeded his father James, was a prince 
 whose personal qualities were excellent. It was said of him 
 justly, that considered as a private gentleman, there was not a 
 more honourable, virtuous, and religious man in his dominions. 
 He was a kind father, an indulgent master, and even too affec- 
 tionate a husband, permitting the Queen Henrietta Maria, the 
 beautiful daughter of Henry IV. of France, to influence his 
 government in a degree beyond her sphere. Charles possessed 
 also the personal dignity which his father totally wanted ; and 
 there is no just occasion to question that so good a man as we 
 have described him had the intention to rule his people justly 
 and mercifully, in place of enforcing the ancient feudal thral- 
 dom. But, on the other hand, he entertained extravagant 
 ideas of the regal power, feelings which, being peculiarly un- 
 suitable to the times in which he lived, occasioned his own 
 total ruin, and, for a time, that of his posterity. 
 
 The English people had been now, for a century and more, 
 relieved from the severe yoke of the nobles, and had forgotten 
 how severely it had pressed upon their forefathers. What had 
 galled them in the late reign were the exactions of King 
 James, who, to indulge his prodigal liberality to worthless
 
 1 625 THE STAR-CHAMBER 441 
 
 favourites, had extorted from Parliament large supplies, and 
 having misapplied these, had endeavoured to obtain others in 
 an indirect and illegal manner by granting to individuals, for 
 sums of money, exclusive rights to sell certain commodities, 
 which the monopolist immediately raised to a high rate, and 
 made a large fortune, while the King got little by the bribe 
 which he had received, and the subjects suffered extremely by 
 the price of articles, perhaps necessaries of life, being unduly 
 advanced. Yet James, finding that a spirit of opposition had 
 arisen within the House of Commons, and that pecuniary 
 grants were obtained with difficulty, could not be induced to 
 refrain from such indirect practices to obtain money from the 
 people without the consent of their representatives in Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 It was James's object also to support the royal power in the 
 full authority, which, by gradual encroachments, it had at- 
 tained during the reign of the Tudors ; and he was disposed to 
 talk high of his prerogative, for which he stated himself to be 
 accountable to God alone ; whereas it was the just principle 
 of the House of Commons, that the power of the King, like 
 every other power in the constitution, was limited by the laws, 
 and was liable to be legally resisted when it trespassed beyond 
 them. Such were the disputes which James held with his 
 subjects. His timidity prevented him from pushing his claims 
 to extremity, and although courtly divines and ambitious 
 lawyers were ready to have proved, as they pretended, his 
 absolute and indefeasible right to obedience, even in uncon- 
 stitutional commands, he shrunk from the contest, and left to 
 his son the inheritance of much discontent which his conduct 
 had excited, but which did not immediately break out into a 
 flame. 
 
 Charles held the same opinions of his own rights as a 
 monarch, which had been infused into him by his father's in- 
 structions, and he was obstinate and persevering where James 
 had been timid and flexible. Arbitrary courts of justice, par- 
 ticularly one termed the Star-chamber, afforded the King the 
 means of punishing those who opposed themselves to the royal 
 will ; but the violent exertion of authority only increased the 
 sense of the evil, and a general discontent against the King's 
 person and prerogative began to prevail throughout England. 
 
 These menacing appearances were much increased by re-
 
 442 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLI 
 
 ligious motives. The Church of England had been since the 
 Reformation gradually dividing into two parties, one of which 
 warmly approved of by King James, and yet more keenly 
 patronised by Charles, was peculiarly attached to the rites and 
 ceremonies of the Church, the strict observance of particular 
 forms of worship, and the use of certain pontifical dresses when 
 divine service was performed. A numerous party, called the 
 Puritans, although they complied with the model of the Church 
 of England, considered these peculiar rites and formalities, on 
 which the High Churchmen, as the opposite party began to be 
 called, laid such stress, as remains of Popery, and things there- 
 fore to be abolished. 
 
 The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Laud, a man of talents 
 and learning, was devotedly attached to the High Church in- 
 terest, and, countenanced by Charles, he resolved to use all the 
 powers, both of the civil and spiritual courts, to subdue the 
 refractory spirit of the Puritans, and enforce their compliance 
 with the ceremonies which he thought so essential to the well- 
 being of the Church. If men had been left to entertain calm 
 and quiet thoughts on these points, they would in time have 
 discovered, that, having chosen what was esteemed the most 
 suitable rules for the national Church, it would have been more 
 wise and prudent to leave the consciences of the hearers to 
 determine whether they would conform to them, or assemble 
 for worship elsewhere. But prosecutions, fines, pillories, and 
 imprisonments, employed to restrain religious opinions, only 
 make them burn the more fiercely ; and those who submitted 
 to such sufferings with patience, rather than renounce the 
 doctrines they had espoused, were counted as martyrs, and 
 followed accordingly. These dissensions in Church and State 
 continued to agitate England from year to year ; but it was the 
 disturbances in Scotland which brought them to a crisis. 
 
 The King had kept firmly in view his father's favourite pro- 
 ject of bringing the Church of Scotland, in point of church 
 government and church ceremonies, to the same model with 
 that of England. But to settle a national church, with a 
 gradation of dignified clergy, required large funds, which 
 Scotland could not afford for such a purpose. In this dilemma 
 the King and his counsellors resolved, by one sweeping act of 
 revocation, to resume to the crown all the tithes and benefices 
 which had been conferred upon laymen at the Reformation,
 
 1 625 TITHES 443 
 
 and thus obtain the funds necessary to endow the projected 
 bishoprics. 
 
 I must try to explain to you what tithes are. By the law 
 delivered to the Jews, the tithes, that is the tenth part of the 
 yearly produce of the land, whether in animals born on the 
 soil, or in corn, fruit, and vegetable productions, were destined 
 to the support of the priests, who performed the religious ser- 
 vice in the Temple of Jerusalem. The same rule was adopted 
 by the Christian Church, and the tithes were levied from the 
 farmer or possessor of the land, for the maintenance of the 
 ecclesiastical establishments. When the Reformation took 
 place, the great nobles and gentry of Scotland got grants of 
 these tithes from the crown, engaging to take upon themselves 
 the support of the clergy, whom they paid at as low a rate as 
 possible. Those nobles and gentry who held such gifts were 
 called titulars of tithes, answering to the English phrase of 
 impropriators. They used the privileges which they had 
 acquired with great rigour. They would not suffer the farmer 
 to lead a sheaf of corn from the field until the tithe had been 
 selected and removed, and in this way exercised their right 
 with far more severity than had been done by the Roman 
 Catholic clergy, who usually accepted a certain reasonable sum 
 of money, as a modification or composition for their claim, and 
 thus left the proprietor of the crop to manage it as he would, 
 instead of actually taking the tithes in kind. But the titulars, 
 as they used their privilege with rigour and to the utmost, were 
 equally tenacious in retaining it. 
 
 When assembled in Parliament, or, as it was termed, the 
 Convention of Estates, the Scottish lords who were possessed 
 of grants of tithes determined that, rather than yield to the re- 
 vocation proposed by the Earl of Nithsdale, who was the royal 
 commissioner, they woxild massacre him and his adherents in 
 the face of the assembly. This purpose was so decidedly enter- 
 tained, that Lord Belhaven, an old blind man, placed himself 
 close to the Earl of Dumfries, a supporter of tho intended re- 
 vocation, and keeping hold of his neighbour with one hand, for 
 which he apologised, as being necessary to enable him to sup- 
 port himself, he held in the other the hilt of a dagger concealed 
 in his bosom, that, as soon as the general signal should be 
 given, he might play his part in the tragedy by plunging it 
 into Lord Dumfries's heart. Nithsdale, learning something of
 
 444 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XL! 
 
 this desperate resolution, gave the proposed measure of revoca- 
 tion up for the time, and returned to court. 
 
 The King, however, was at length able, by the assistance of 
 a convention of the clergy summoned together by the bishops 
 and by the general clamour of the land-owners, who complained 
 of the rigorous exactions of the titulars, to obtain a partial 
 surrender of the tithes into the power of the crown. The power 
 of levying them in kind was suppressed ; the landholder was 
 invested with a right to retain every season's tithe upon paying 
 a modified sum, and to purchase the entire right from the titular 
 (if he had the means to do so) at a rate of purchase restricted 
 to seven years' rent. 
 
 These alterations were attended with the greatest advantages 
 to the country in process of time, but they were very offensive 
 to the Scottish nobility, whom they deprived of valuable rights 
 at an inadequate price. 
 
 Charles also made an attempt to reverse some of the 
 attainders which had taken place in his father's time, particu- 
 larly that of Stewart, Earl of Bothwell. Much of this turbulent 
 nobleman's forfeited property had fallen to the lot of the Lords 
 of Buccleuch and Cessford, who were compelled to surrender a 
 part of their spoils. These proceedings, as well as the revoca- 
 tion of the grants of tithes, highly irritated the Scottish 
 nobility, and some wild proposals were held among them for 
 dethroning Charles, and placing the Marquis of Hamilton on 
 the throne. 
 
 The only remarkable consequence of this intrigue, was a trial 
 in the long forgotten Court of Chivalry, the last, it may be 
 supposed, that will ever take place. Donald Lord Reay 
 affirmed, that Mr. David Ramsay had used certain treasonable 
 expressions in his, the said Donald's hearing. Both were sum- 
 moned to appear before the High Constable of England. They 
 appeared accordingly, in great pomp, attended by their friends. 
 
 " Lord Reay," says an eye-witness, " was clothed in black 
 velvet, embroidered with silver, carried his sword in a silver 
 embroidered belt, and wore around his neck his badge as a 
 Baronet of Nova Scotia. He was a tall, black, swarthy man, 
 of a portly and stout demeanour." The defender was next 
 ushered in, a fair man, and having a head of ruddy hair so 
 bushy and long, that he was usually termed Ramsay Redhead. 
 He was dressed in scarlet so richly embroidered with gold, that
 
 1625-33 COURT OF CHIVALRY 445 
 
 the cloth could scarcely be discerned, but he was totally un- 
 armed. While they fixed their eyes on each other sternly, the 
 charge was read, stating that Ramsay, the defendant, had urged 
 him, Lord Reay, to engage in a conspiracy for dethroning the 
 King, and placing the Marquis of Hamilton upon the throne. 
 He added, that if Ramsay should deny this, he would prove 
 him a villain and a traitor by dint of sword. Ramsay, for an- 
 swer, called Reay " a liar and a barbarous villain, and protested 
 he should die for it." They had exchanged gloves. After 
 many delays, the court named a day of combat, assigning as 
 the weapons to be used, a spear, a long sword, and a short 
 sword or a dagger. The most minute circumstances were 
 arranged, and provision was even made at what time the parties 
 might have the assistance of armourers and tailors, with 
 hammers, nails, files, scissors, bodkins, needles, and thread. But 
 now, when you are perhaps expecting, with curiosity, a tale of 
 a bloody fight, I have to acquaint you that the King forbade 
 the combat, and the affair was put to sleep. Times were 
 greatly changed since the days when almost every species of 
 accusation might be tried in this manner. 
 
 Charles visited his native country of Scotland in 1633, for 
 the purpose of being crowned. He was received by the people 
 at first with great apparent affection ; but discontent arose on 
 its being observed, that he omitted no opportunity of pressing 
 upon the bishops, who had hitherto only worn plain black 
 gowns, the use of the more splendid vestments of the English 
 Church. This alteration of habit grievously offended the 
 Presbyterians, who saw in it a further approximation to the 
 Romish ritual ; while the nobility, remembering that they had 
 been partly deprived of their tithes, and that their possession 
 of the Church lands was in danger, saw with great pleasure the 
 obnoxious prelates, for whose sake the revocation had been 
 made, incur the odium of the people at large. 
 
 It was left for Archbishop Laud to bring all this slumbering 
 discontent into action, by an attempt to introduce into the 
 divine service of the Church of Scotland a Form of Common 
 Prayer and Liturgy similar to that used in England. This, 
 however reasonable an institution in itself, was at variance 
 with the character of Presbyterian worship, in which the clergy- 
 man always addressed the Deity in extemporaneous prayer, 
 and in no prescribed, or regular form of words. King James
 
 446 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XL! 
 
 himself, wheu courting the favour of the Presbyterian party, 
 had called the English service an ill-mumbled mass ; forgetting 
 that the objection to the mass applies, not to the prayers, 
 which must be excellent, since they are chiefly extracted from 
 Scripture, but to the worship of the Eucharist, which Protest- 
 ants think idolatrous, and to the service being in a foreign 
 language. Neither of these objections applies to the English 
 form of prayer ; but the expression of the King was not for- 
 gotten, and he was reminded of it far more frequently than 
 was agreeable to him. 
 
 Upon the whole, this new and most obnoxious change in 
 the form of public worship, throughout Scotland, where the 
 nobility were known to be in a state of great discontent, was 
 very ill-timed. Right or wrong, the people in general were 
 prejudiced against this innovation, in a matter so serious as 
 the form of devotion ; and yet, such a change was to be 
 attempted, without any other authority than that of the King 
 and the bishops; while both the Parliament and a General 
 Assembly of the Church of Scotland had a right to be consulted 
 in a matter so important. Nor is it less extraordinary that 
 the Government seems to have been totally unprovided with 
 any suflicient force to overcome the opposition which was most 
 certain to take place. 
 
 The rash and fatal experiment was made, 23d July 1637, 
 in the High Church of St. Giles, Edinburgh, where the dean 
 of the city prepared to read the new service before a numer- 
 ous concourse of persons, none of whom seem to have been 
 favourably disposed to its reception. As the reader of the 
 prayers announced the Collect for the day, an old woman 
 named Jenny Geddes, who kept a green-stall in the High 
 Street, bawled out " The deil colick in the wame of thee, 
 thou false thief ! dost thou say the mass at my lug ? " With 
 that she flung at the dean's head the stool upon which she had 
 been sitting, and a wild tumult instantly commenced. The 
 women of lower condition [instigated, it is said, by their 
 superiors] flew at the dean, tore the surplice from his shoulders, 
 and drove him out of the church. The Bishop of Edinburgh 
 mounted the pulpit, but he was also assailed with missiles, and 
 with vehement exclamations of " A Pope ! a Pope ! Anti- 
 christ ! pull him down, stone him ! " while the windows were 
 broken with stones flung by a disorderly multitude from with-
 
 1633-7 NATIONAL COVENANT 447 
 
 out. This was not all : the prelates were assaulted in the 
 street, and misused by the mob. The life of the bishop was 
 with difficulty saved by Lord Roxburghe, who carried him 
 home in his carriage, surrounded by his retinue with drawn 
 swords. 
 
 This tumult, which has now something ludicrous in its 
 details, was the signal for a general resistance to the reception 
 of the Service-book throughout the whole country. The 
 Privy Council of Scotland were lukewarm, or rather cold, in 
 the cause. They wrote to Charles a detailed account of the 
 tumults, and did not conceal that the opposition to the mea- 
 sure was spreading far and wide. 
 
 Charles was inflexible in his purpose, and so greatly incensed, 
 that he showed his displeasure even in trifles. It was the 
 ancient custom, to have a fool, or jester, maintained at court, 
 privileged to break his satirical jests at random. The post was 
 then held by one Archie Armstrong, who, as he saw the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury posting to court, in consequence of the 
 mortifying tidings from Scotland, could not help whispering 
 in the prelate's ear the sly question, " Who's fool now, my 
 lord?" For this jest, poor Archie, having been first severely 
 whipped, was disgraced and dismissed from court, where no 
 fool has again been admitted, at leastun an avowed and official 
 capacity. 
 
 But Archie was a more accessible object of punishment than 
 the malcontents in Scotland. It was in vain that Charles 
 sent down repeated and severe messages, blaming the Privy 
 Council, the Magistrates, and all who did not punish the rioters, 
 and enforce the reading of the Service-book. The resistance to 
 the measure, which was at first tumultuous, and the work of 
 the lower orders, had now assumed quality and consistency. 
 More than thirty peers, and a very great proportion of the 
 gentry of Scotland, together with the greater part of the royal 
 burghs, had, before the month of December, agreed not merely 
 to oppose the Service-book, but to act together in resisting the 
 further intrusions of Prelacy. They were kept in union and 
 directed by representatives appointed from among themselves, 
 and forming separate Committees, or, as they were termed, 
 Tables or Boards of management. 
 
 Under the auspices of these Tables, or Committees, a species 
 of engagement, or declaration, was drawn up, the principal
 
 448 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XL1 
 
 object of which was, the eradication of Prelacy in all its modi- 
 fications, and the establishment of Presbytery on its purest and 
 most simple basis. This engagement was called the National 
 Covenant, as resembling those covenants which, in the Old 
 Testament, God is said to have made with the people of Israel. 
 The terms of this memorable league professed the Reformed 
 faith, and abjured the rites and doctrines of the Romish Church, 
 with which were classed the newly imposed Liturgy and Canons. 
 This covenant, which had for its object to annul all of prelatic 
 innovation that James's policy, and his son's violence, had been 
 able to introduce into the Presbyterian Church, was sworn to 
 by hundreds, thousands, and hundreds of thousands, 
 f ever y a S e an( l description, vowing, with uplifted 
 hands and weeping eyes, that with the Divine assist- 
 ance, they would dedicate life and fortune to maintain the 
 object of their solemn engagement. 
 
 Undoubtedly, many persons who thus subscribed the National 
 Covenant, did not seriously feel any apprehension that Prelacy 
 would introduce Popery, or that the Book of Common Prayer 
 was in itself a grievance which the people of Scotland did well 
 or wisely to oppose ; but they were convinced, that in thus 
 forcing a matter of conscience upon a whole nation, the King 
 disregarded the rights and liberties of his subjects, and foresaw, 
 that if not now withstood, he was most likely to make himself 
 absolute master of their rights and privileges in secular as well 
 as religious affairs. They therefore joined in such measures as 
 procured a general resistance to the arbitrary power so rashly 
 assumed by King Charles. 
 
 Meantime, while the King negotiated and procrastinated, 
 Scotland, though still declaring attachment to his person, was 
 nearly in a state of general resistance. 
 
 The Covenanters, as they began to be called, held a General 
 Assembly of the Church, at which the Marquis of Hamilton 
 attended as Lord Commissioner for the King. This important 
 meeting was held at Glasgow. There all the measures 
 P mte d at ty the Covenant were carried fully into 
 effect Episcopacy was abolished, the existing bishops 
 were deprived of their power, and eight of them excommunicated 
 for divers alleged irregularities. 
 
 The Covenanters took arms to support these bold measures. 
 They recalled to Scotland the numerous officers who had been
 
 1638-9 INVASION OF SCOTLAND 449 
 
 trained in the wars of Germany, and committed the command 
 of the whole to Alexander Lesley, a veteran general of skill 
 and experience, who had possessed the friendship of Gustavus 
 Adolphus. They soon made great progress ; for the castles 
 of Edinburgh, Dalkeith, and other national fortresses were 
 treacherously surrendered to, or daringly surprised, by the 
 Covenanters. 
 
 King Charles, meantime, was preparing for the invasion of 
 Scotland with a powerful army by land and sea. The fleet was 
 commanded by the Marquis of Hamilton, who, unwilling to 
 commence a civil war, or, as some supposed, not being on this 
 occasion peculiarly zealous in the King's service, made no 
 attempt to prosecute the enterprise. The fleet lay idle in the 
 Firth of Forth, while Charles in person, at the head of an army 
 of twenty -three thousand men, gallantly equipped by the 
 English nobility, seemed as much determined upon the subjuga- 
 tion of his ancient kingdom of Scotland, as ever any of the 
 Edwards or Henrys of England had been. But the Scottish 
 Covenanters showed the same determined spirit of resistance, 
 which, displayed by their ancestors, had frustrated so many in- 
 vasions, and it was now mingled with much political discretion. 
 
 A great degree of military discipline had been introduced 
 into the Scottish levies, considering how short time they had 
 been on foot. They lay encamped on Dunse Law, a gently 
 sloping hill, very favourable for a military display. 1 Their 
 camp was defended by forty field-pieces, and their army con- 
 sisted of twenty-four or twenty-five thousand men. The highest 
 Scottish nobles, as Argyle, Rothes, Cassilis, Eglinton, Dalhousie, 
 Lindsay, Loudon, Balcarres, and others, acted as colonels ; 
 their captains were gentlemen of high rank and fortune ; and 
 the inferior commissions were chiefly bestowed on veteran 
 officers who had served abroad. The utmost order was observed 
 in their camp, whilst the presence of numerous clergymen kept 
 up the general enthusiasm, and seemed to give a religious 
 character to the war. 
 
 In this crisis, when a decisive battle was to have been ex- 
 pected, only one very slight action took place, when a few 
 
 1 Duuse Law is a beautiful little hill, close by the town of the same 
 name. It rises in a gradual ascent till it terminates in a plain of nearly 
 thirty acres, and still bears on its broomy top marks of the encampment 
 of the Covenanters. 
 
 29
 
 450 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XL1 
 
 English cavalry, retreating hastily and in disorder, from a still 
 smaller number of Scots, seemed to show that the 
 ^^* invaders had not their hearts engaged in the combat. 
 The King was surrounded by many counsellors, who 
 had no interest to encourage the war ; and the whole body of 
 English Puritans considered the resistance of Scotland as the 
 triumph of the good cause over Popery and Prelacy. Charles's 
 own courage seems to have failed him, at the idea of encounter- 
 ing a force so well provided, and so enthusiastic, as that of 
 the Covenanters, with a dispirited army acting under divided 
 counsels. A treaty was entered into, though of an insecure 
 character. The King granted a declaration, in which, without 
 confirming the acts of the Assembly of Glasgow, which he 
 would not acknowledge as a lawful one, he agreed that all 
 matters concerning the regulation of church government should 
 be left to a new Convocation of the Church. 
 
 Such an agreement could not be lasting. The Covenanting 
 Lords did, indeed, disband their forces, and restore to the 
 King's troops the strong places which they had occupied ; but 
 they held themselves ready to take arms, and seize upon them 
 again, on the slightest notice; neither was the King able to 
 introduce any considerable degree of disunion into so formidable 
 a league. 
 
 The General Assembly of the Church, convened according 
 to the treaty, failed not to confirm all that had been done by 
 their predecessors at Glasgow ; the National Covenant was re- 
 newed, and the whole conclusions of the body were in favour 
 of pure and unmingled Presbytery. The Scottish Parliament, 
 on their part, demanded several privileges, necessary, it was 
 said, to freedom of debate, and required that the Estates of the 
 kingdom should be convened at least once every three years. 
 On receiving these demands, Charles thought he beheld a 
 formed scheme for undermining his royal authority, and pre- 
 pared to renew the war. 
 
 His determination involved, however, consequences more im- 
 portant than even the war with Scotland. His private economy 
 had enabled the King to support, from the crown lands and 
 other funds, independent of Parliamentary grants, the ordinary 
 expenses of the state, and he had been able even to sustain the 
 charges of the first army raised to invade Scotland, without 
 having recourse to the House of Commons. But his treasures
 
 1639-40 THE LONG PARLIAMENT 451 
 
 were now exhausted, and it became indispensable to convoke a 
 Parliament, and obtain from the Commons a grant of money 
 to support the war. The Parliament met, but were too much 
 occupied by their own grievances, to take an immediate interest 
 in the Scottish war, which they only viewed as affording a 
 favourable opportunity for enforcing their own objects. They 
 refused the supplies demanded. The King was obliged to dis- 
 solve them, and have recourse to the aid of Ireland, to the 
 Convocation of the Church, to compulsory loans, and other in- 
 direct methods of raising money, so that his resources were 
 exhausted by the effort. 
 
 On hearing that the King was again collecting his army, 
 and had placed himself at its head, the Parliament of Scotland 
 resolved on reassembling theirs. It was done with such facility, 
 and so speedily, that it was plain they had been, during the 
 short suspension of arms, occupied in preparing for a new 
 rupture. They did not now wait till the King should invade 
 Scotland, but boldly crossed the Tweed, entered England, and 
 advancing to the banks of the Tyne, found Lord Conway 
 posted at Newburn, with six thousand men, having batteries 
 of cannon in his front, and prepared to dispute the passage of 
 the river. On 28th August 1640 the battle of Newburn 
 was fought. The Scots, after silencing the artillery by their 
 superior fire, entered the ford, girdle deep, and made their way 
 across the river. The English fled with a speed and disorder 
 unworthy of their national reputation. 
 
 The King, surprised at this defeat, and justly distrusting 
 the faith of many who were in his army and near his person, 
 directed his forces to retreat into Yorkshire, where he had 
 arrived in person ; and again, with more serious intentions of 
 abiding by it, commenced a negotiation with his insurgent 
 subjects. At the same time, to appease the growing discontent 
 of the English nation, he resolved again to call a Parliament. 
 There were, no doubt, in the royal camp, many persons to whom 
 the presence of a Scottish army was acceptable, as serving to 
 overawe the more violent royalists ; and the Scots were easily 
 induced to protract their stay, when it was proposed to them 
 to receive pay and provisions at the expense of England. 
 
 The meeting of that celebrated body called, in English 
 history, the Long Parliament, took place on 3d November 
 1640. The majority of the members were disaffected with the
 
 452 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLI 
 
 King's government, on account of his severity in matters of 
 religion, and his tendency to despotism in state affairs. These 
 malcontents formed a strong party, determined to diminish 
 the royal authority, and reduce, if not altogether to destroy, 
 the hierarchy of the Church. The negotiations for peace being 
 transferred from Ripon to London, the presence of the Scottish 
 commissioners was highly acceptable to those statesmen who 
 opposed the King; and the preaching of the clergymen by 
 whom they were accompanied appeared equally instructive to 
 the citizens of London and their wives. 
 
 In this favourable situation, and completely successful over 
 the royal will (for Charles I. could not propose to contend at 
 once with the English Parliament and with the Scottish army), 
 the peremptory demands of the Scots were neither light, nor 
 easily gratified. They required that the King should confirm 
 every act of the Scottish Convention of Estates with which he 
 had been at war, recall all the proclamations which he had 
 sent out against them, place the fortresses of Scotland in the 
 hands of such officers as the Convention should approve of, 
 pay all the expenses of the war, and, last and bitterest, they 
 stipulated, that those of the King's counsellors who had advised 
 the late hostilities, should be punished as incendiaries. While 
 the Scots were discussing these severe conditions, they remained 
 in their quarters in England much at their ease, overawing by 
 their presence the King, and those who might be disposed to 
 join him, and affording to the opposition party in the English 
 Parliament an opportunity of obtaining redress for the grievances 
 of which they, in their turn, complained. 
 
 The King thus circumstanced was compelled to give way. 
 The oppressive courts in which arbitrary proceedings had taken 
 place were abolished; every species of contrivance by which 
 Charles had endeavoured to levy money without consent of 
 Parliament, a subject on which the people of England were 
 justly jealous, was declared unlawful ; and it was provided, that 
 Parliaments should be summoned every three years. 
 
 Thus the power of the King was reduced within the boun- 
 daries of the constitution : but the Parliament were not satisfied 
 with this general redress of grievances, though including all 
 that had hitherto been openly complained of. A strong party 
 among the members was determined to be satisfied with nothing 
 short of the abolition of Episcopacy in England as well as in
 
 1640-1 MARQUIS OF MONTROSE 453 
 
 Scotland ; and many who did not aim at that favourite point, 
 entertained fears, that if the King were left in possession of 
 such powers as the constitution allowed him, he would find 
 means of re-establishing and perpetuating the grievances which, 
 for the time, he had consented to abolish. 
 
 Gratified with a donation of three hundred thousand pounds, 
 given under the delicate name of brotherly assistance, the 
 Scottish army at length retired homeward, and left the King 
 and Parliament of England to settle their own affairs. The 
 troops had scarcely returned to Scotland and disbanded, when 
 Charles proposed to himself a visit to his native kingdom. 
 He arrived in Scotland on the 12th of August 1641. There 
 can be little doubt that the purpose of this royal progress was 
 to inquire closely into the causes which had enabled the Scottish 
 nation, usually divided into factions and quarrels, to act with 
 such unanimity, and to try whether it might not be possible 
 for the King to attach to his royal interest and person some of 
 the principal leaders, and thus form a party who might not 
 only prevent his English dominions from being again invaded 
 by an army from Scotland, but might be disposed to serve him, 
 in case he should come to an open rupture with his English 
 Parliament. For this purpose he dispensed dignities and gifts 
 in Scotland with an unsparing hand ; made General Lesley Earl 
 of Leven, raised the Lords Loudon and Lindsay to the same 
 rank, and received into his administration several nobles who 
 had been active in the late invasion of England. On most of 
 these persons the King's benefits produced little effect. They 
 considered him only as giving what, if he had dared, he would 
 have withheld. But Charles made a convert to his interest of 
 one nobleman, whose character and actions have rendered him 
 a memorable person in Scottish history. 
 
 This was James Graham, Earl of Montrose ; a man of high 
 genius, glowing with the ambition which prompts great actions, 
 and conscious of courage and talents which enabled him to 
 aspire to much by small and inadequate means. He was a poet 
 and a scholar, deeply skilled in the art of war, and possessed 
 of a strength of constitution and activity of mind by which 
 he could sustain every hardship, and find a remedy in every re- 
 verse of fortune. It was remarked of him by Cardinal du Retz, 
 an unquestionable judge, that he resembled more nearly than 
 any man of his age those great heroes, whose names and history
 
 454 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLl 
 
 are handed down to us by the Greek and Roman historians. 
 As a qualification to this high praise, it must be added, that 
 Montrose's courage sometimes approached to rashness, and that 
 some of his actions arose more from the dictates of private 
 revenge than became his nobler qualities. 
 
 The young Earl had attended the court of Charles when he 
 came home from his travels, but not meeting with the attention 
 which he was conscious of deserving, he withdrew into Scotland, 
 and took a zealous share in forming and forwarding the National 
 Covenant. A man of such talent could not fail to be employed 
 and distinguished. Montrose was sent by the confederated 
 lords of the Covenant to chastise the prelatic town of Aberdeen, 
 and to disperse the Gordons, who were taking arms for the 
 King under the Marquis of Huntly, and succeeded in both com- 
 missions. When the army of the Scottish Parliament entered 
 England, he was the first man who forded the Tweed. He 
 passed alone under the fire of the English, to ascertain the 
 depth of the water, and returned to lead over the regiment 
 which he commanded. Notwithstanding these services to the 
 cause of the Covenant, Montrose had the mortification to see 
 that the Earl of Argyle (the ancient feudal enemy of his house) 
 was preferred to him by the heads of the party, and chiefly by 
 the clergy. There was something in the fiery ambition, and 
 unyielding purpose of Montrose, which startled inferior minds ; 
 while Argyle, dark, close, and crafty a man well qualified to 
 affect a complete devotion to the ends of others, when he was, 
 in fact, bent on forwarding his own, stooped lower to court 
 popularity, and was more successful in gaining it. 
 
 The King had long observed that Montrose was dissatisfied 
 with the party to which he had hitherto adhered, and found no 
 difficulty in engaging his services for the future in the royal 
 cause. The noble convert set so actively about inducing others 
 to follow his example, that even during the course of the 
 treaty of Ripon, he had procured the subscription of nineteen 
 noblemen to a bond, engaging themselves to unite in support 
 of Charles. This act of defection being discovered by the 
 Covenanters, Montrose was imprisoned; and the King, on 
 coming to Scotland, had the mortification to find himself 
 deprived of the assistance of this invaluable adherent. 
 
 Montrose contrived, however, to communicate with the 
 King from his prison in the castle of Edinburgh, and disclosed
 
 1641 THE INCIDENT 455 
 
 so inauy circumstances respecting the purposes of the Marquia 
 of Hamilton and the Earl of Argyle, that Charles had resolved 
 to arrest them both at one moment, and had assembled soldiers 
 for that purpose. They escaped, however, aud retired to their 
 houses, where they could not have been seized but by open 
 violence, and at the risk of a civil war. These noblemen were 
 recalled to court ; and to show that the King's confidence in 
 them was unchanged, Argyle was raised to the rank of Marquis. 
 This obscure affair was called the Incident ; it was never well 
 explained, but at the time excited much suspicion of the King's 
 purposes both in England and in Scotland, and aggravated the 
 disinclination of the English Parliament to leave his royal 
 power on the present unreduced footing. 
 
 There can be little doubt that Montrose's disclosures to the 
 King concerned the private correspondence which passed be- 
 tween the Scottish Covenanters and the Opposition party in 
 the Parliament of England, and which Charles might hope to 
 convert into an accusation of high treason against both. But 
 as he did not feel that he possessed a party in Scotland strong 
 enough to contend with the great majority of the nobles of 
 that country, he judged it best to pass over all further notice 
 of the Incident for the time, and to leave Scotland under the 
 outward appearance at least of mutual concord. He was for- 
 mally congratulated on departing a contented King from a 
 contented people a state of things which did not last long. 
 
 It was, indeed, impossible that Scotland should remain long 
 tranquil, while England, with whom she was now so closely 
 connected, was in such dreadful disorder. The King had no 
 sooner returned from Scotland, than the quarrel betwixt him 
 and his Parliament was renewed with more violence than ever. 
 If either party could have reposed confidence in the other's 
 sincerity, the concessions made by the King were such as ought 
 to have gratified the Parliament. But the strongest suspicions 
 were entertained by the prevailing party, that the King con- 
 sidered the grants which he had made, as having been extorted 
 from him by violence, and that he retained the steady purpose 
 of reassuming, in its full extent, the obnoxious and arbitrary 
 power of which he had been deprived for a season, but which 
 he still considered as part of his royal right. They therefore 
 resolved not to quit the ascendency which they had attained 
 until they had deprived the King, for a season at least, of a
 
 456 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLI 
 
 large portion of his remaining prerogative, although bestowed on 
 him by the constitution, that they might thus prevent his em- 
 ploying it for the recovery of those arbitrary privileges which 
 had been usurped by the throne during the reign of the Tudors. 
 
 While the Parliamentary leaders argued thus, the King, on 
 his side, complained that no concession, however large, was 
 found adequate to satisfy the demands of his discontented 
 subjects. " He had already," he urged, " resigned all the points 
 which had been disputed between them, yet they continued as 
 ill satisfied as before." On these grounds the partisans of the 
 crown were alarmed with the idea that it was the purpose of 
 Parliament altogether to abrogate the royal authority, or at 
 least to depose the reigning King. 
 
 On the return of Charles to London, the Parliament greeted 
 
 him with a remonstrance, in which he was upbraided with all 
 
 tiie real and supposed errors of his reign. At the 
 
 same time, a general disposition to tumult showed 
 
 itself throughout the city. Great mobs of apprentices and 
 
 citizens, not always of the lowest rank, came in tumult to 
 
 Westminster, under the pretence of petitioning the Houses of 
 
 Parliament ; and as they passed Whitehall, they insulted, with 
 
 loud shouts, the guards and servants of the King. The parties 
 
 soon came to blows, and blood was spilt between them. 
 
 Party names, too, were assumed to distinguish the friends 
 of the King from those who favoured the Parliament The 
 former were chiefly gay young men, who, according to the 
 fashion of the times, wore showy dresses, and cultivated the 
 growth of long hair, which, arranged in ringlets, fell over their 
 shoulders. They were called Cavaliers. In distinction, those 
 who adhered to the Parliament assumed, in their garb and 
 deportment, a seriousness and gravity which rejected all orna- 
 ment. They wore their hair, in particular, cropped short around 
 the head, and thence gained the name of Roundheads. 
 
 But it was the difference in their ideas of religion, or rather 
 of church government, which chiefly widened the division 
 betwixt the two parties. The King had been bred up to con- 
 sider the preservation of the Church of England and her 
 hierarchy, as a sacred point of his royal duty, since he was 
 recognised by the constitution as its earthly head and super- 
 intendent. The Presbyterian system, on the contrary, was 
 espoused by a large proportion of the Parliament ; and they
 
 1641-2 ENGLISH CIVIL WAR 457 
 
 were, for the time, seconded by the other numerous classes of 
 Dissenters, all of whom desired to see the destruction of the 
 Church of England, however unwilling they might be, in their 
 secret mind, that a Presbyterian church government should be 
 set up in its stead. The enemies of the English hierarchy 
 greatly predominating within the Houses of Parliament, the 
 lords spiritual, or bishops, were finally expelled from their seats 
 in the House of Lords, and their removal was celebrated as a 
 triumph by the London citizens. 
 
 While matters were in this state, the King committed a 
 great imprudence. Having conceived that he had acquired 
 from Montrose's discovery, or otherwise, certain information 
 that five of the leading members of the House of Commons had 
 been guilty of holding such intimate communication with the 
 Scots when in arms, as might authorise a charge of high treason 
 against them, he formed the highly rash and culpable intention 
 of going to the House of Commons in person, with an armed 
 train of attendants, and causing the accused members to be 
 arrested. By this ill-advised measure, Charles doubtless ex- 
 pected to strike terror into the opposite party ; but it proved 
 altogether ineffectual. The five members had received private 
 information of the blow to be aimed at them, and had fled into 
 the City, where they found numbers willing to conceal, or 
 defend them. The King, by his visit to the House of 
 Commons, only showed that he could stoop to act almost in 
 the capacity of a common constable, or catchpole ; and that he 
 disregarded the respect due to the representatives of the British 
 people, in meditating such an arrest of their members in the 
 presence of that body. 
 
 After this very rash step on the part of the King, every 
 chance of reconciliation seemed at an end. The Commons 
 rejected all amicable proposals, unless the King would surrender 
 to them, for a time at least, the command of the militia or 
 armed force of the kingdom ; and that would have been 
 equivalent to laying his crown at their feet. The King refused 
 to surrender the command of the militia even for an instant ; 
 and both parties prepared to take up arms. Charles left 
 London, where the power of the Parliament was predominant, 
 assembled what friends he could gather at Nottingham, and 
 hoisted the royal standard there, as the signal of civil war, on 
 25th August 1642.
 
 458 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XL1 
 
 The hostilities which ensued, over almost all England, were 
 of a singular character. Long accustomed to peace, the English 
 had but little knowledge of the art of war. The friends of the 
 contending parties assembled their followers, and marched 
 against each other, without much idea of taking strong positions, 
 or availing themselves of able manoeuvres, but with the simple 
 and downright purpose of meeting, fighting with, and defeating 
 those who were in arms on the other side. These battles were 
 contested with great manhood and gallantry, but with little 
 military skill or discipline. It was no uncommon thing for 
 one wing or division of the contending armies, when they found 
 themselves victorious over the body opposed to them, to amuse 
 themselves with chasing the vanquished party for leagues off 
 the field of battle, where the victory was in the meanwhile lost 
 for want of their support. This repeatedly happened through 
 the precipitation of the King's cavalry ; a fine body of men, 
 consisting of the flower of the English nobility and gentry ; but 
 as ungovernable as they were valorous, and usually commanded 
 by Prince Rupert, the King's nephew, a young man of fiery 
 courage, not gifted with prudence corresponding to his bravery 
 and activity. 
 
 In these unhappy civil contentions, the ancient nobility and 
 gentry of England were chiefly disposed to the service of the 
 King; and the farmers and cultivators of the soil followed 
 them as their natural leaders. The cause of the Parliament 
 was supported by London, with all its wealth and its numbers, 
 and by the other large towns, seaports, and manufacturing 
 districts, throughout the country. At the commencement of 
 the war, the Parliament, being in possession of most of the 
 fortified places in England, with the magazines of arms and 
 ammunition which they contained, having also numbers of men 
 prepared to obey their summons, and with power to raise 
 large sums of money to pay them, seemed to possess great 
 advantages over the party of Charles. But the gallantry of 
 the King's followers was able to restore the balance, and pro- 
 posals were made for peace on equal terms, which, had all 
 parties been as sincere in seeking it, as the good and wise of 
 each side certainly were, might then have been satisfactorily 
 concluded. 
 
 A treaty was set on foot at Oxford in the winter and spring 
 of 1643, and the Scottish Parliament sent to England a com-
 
 1642-3 ENGLISH CIVIL WAR 459 
 
 inittee of the persons employed as conservators of the peace 
 between the kingdoms, to negotiate, if possible, a pacification 
 between the King and his Parliament, honourable for the 
 crown, satisfactory for the liberty of the subject, and secure 
 for both. But the King listened to the warmer and more 
 passionate counsellors, who pointed out to him that the Scots 
 would, to a certainty, do their utmost to root out Prelacy in 
 any system of accommodation which they might assist in 
 framing ; and that having, in fact, been the first who had set 
 the example of a successful resistance to the crown, they could 
 not now be expected to act as friends to the King in any 
 negotiation in which his prerogative was concerned. The result 
 was, that the Scottish Commissioners, finding themselves 
 treated with coldness by the King, and with menace and scorn 
 by the more vehement of his followers, left Oxford still more 
 displeased with the Royal cause than they were when they had 
 come thither. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII 
 
 A Scottish Army sent to assist that of the English Parliament 
 Montrose's victories in Scotland in support of the King 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGN. France : Louis XIV. 
 16431644 
 
 IN 1643, when the advance of spring permitted the resumption 
 of hostilities, it was found that the state of the King's party 
 was decidedly superior to that of the Parliament, and it was 
 generally believed that the event of the war would be decided 
 in the Royal favour, could the co-operation of the Scots be ob- 
 tained. The King privately made great offers to the Scottish 
 nation, to induce them to declare in his favour, or at least 
 remain neuter in the struggle. He called upon them to re- 
 member that he bad gratified all their wishes, without excep- 
 tion, and reminded them that the late peace between England 
 and Scotland provided, that neither country should declare war 
 against the other without due provocation, and the consent of 
 Parliament. But the members of the Scottish Convention of
 
 460 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLIl 
 
 Estates were sensible, that if they should assist the King to 
 conquer the English Parliament, for imitating their own example 
 of insurrection, it would be naturally followed by their under- 
 going punishment themselves for the lesson which they had 
 taught the English. They feared for the Presbyterian system, 
 some of them, no doubt, feared for themselves, and all 
 turned a deaf ear to the King's proposals. 
 
 On the other hand a deputation from Parliament pressed 
 upon the Scottish Convention another clause in the treaty of 
 peace made in 1641, namely, that the Parliament of either 
 country should send aid to each other to repel invasion or 
 suppress internal disturbances. In compliance with this 
 article, the English Commissioners desired the assistance of a 
 body of Scottish auxiliaries. The country being at this time 
 filled with disbanded officers and soldiers who were eager for 
 employment, the opportunity and the invitation were extremely 
 tempting to them, for they remembered the free quarters and 
 good pay which they had enjoyed while in England. Never- 
 theless, the leading members of the Convention of Estates 
 were aware, that to embrace the party of the Parliament of 
 England, and despatch to their assistance a large body of 
 auxiliary forces, selected, as they must be, from their best 
 levies, would necessarily expose their authority in Scotland to 
 considerable danger ; for the King's friends who had joined in 
 the bond with Montrose were men of power and influence, 
 and, having the will, only waited for the opportunity, to act in 
 his behalf; and might raise, perhaps, a formidable insurrection 
 in Scotland itself, when relieved from the superiority of force 
 which at present was so great on the side of the Convention. 
 But the English Commissioners held out a bait which the 
 Convention found it impossible to resist. 
 
 From the success which the ruling party had experienced in 
 establishing the Church of Scotland on a Presbyterian model, 
 and from the great influence which the clergy had acquired in 
 the councils of the nation by the late course of events, both the 
 clergy and laity of that persuasion had been induced to cherish 
 the ambitious desire of totally destroying the hierarchy of the 
 Church of England, and of introducing into that kingdom a form 
 of church government on the Presbyterian model To accomplish 
 this favourite object, the leading Presbyterians in Scotland were 
 willing to run every risk, and to make every exertion.
 
 1 643 NEGOTIATIONS 461 
 
 The Commissioners of England were most ready to join with 
 this idea, so far as concerned the destruction of Prelacy ; but 
 they knew that the English Parliament party were greatly 
 divided among themselves on the propriety of substituting the 
 Presbyterian system in its place. The whole body of Secta- 
 rians, or Independents, were totally opposed to the introduction 
 of any national church government whatever, and were averse 
 to that of Presbytery in particular, the Scottish clergy having, 
 in their opinion, shown themselves disposed to be as absolute 
 and intolerant in their church judicatories as the bishops had 
 been while in power. But, with a crafty policy, the Com- 
 missioners conducted the negotiation in such a manner as to give 
 the Scottish Convention reason to believe, that they would 
 accomplish their favourite desire of seeing the system which 
 they so much admired, acknowledged, and adopted in England, 
 while, in fact, they bound their constituents, the English 
 Parliament, to nothing specific on the subject. 
 
 The Commissioners proposed to join with the Scottish nation 
 in a new edition of the Covenant, which had before proved 
 such a happy bond of union among the Scots themselves. In 
 this new bond of religious association, which was called the 
 Solemn League and Covenant, it was provided, that the church 
 government of Scotland should be supported and maintained 
 on its present footing ; but with regard to England, the agree- 
 ment was expressed with studied ambiguity the religious 
 system of England, it was provided, should be reformed "ac- 
 cording to the word of God, and the example of the best 
 reformed churches." The Scots, usually more cautious in their 
 transactions, never allowed themselves to doubt for a moment, 
 that the rule and example to be adopted under this clause must 
 necessarily be that of Presbytery, and under this conviction 
 both the nobles and the clergy hastened with raptures, and 
 even with tears of joy, to subscribe the proposed League. But 
 several of the English Commissioners enjoyed in secret the 
 reserved power of interpreting the clause otherwise, and of 
 explaining the phrase in a sense applicable to their own ideas 
 of emancipation from church government of every kind. 
 
 The Solemn League and Covenant was sworn to in Scotland 
 with general acclamation, and was received and adopted by the 
 English Parliament with the same applause, all discussion of 
 the dubious article being cautiously avoided. The Scots pro-
 
 462 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLII 
 
 ceeded, with eager haste, to send to the assistance of the Par- 
 liament of England a well -disciplined army of upwards oi 
 twenty thousand men, under the command of Alexander Les- 
 ley, Earl of Leven. An officer of character, named Baillie, 
 was Leven's lieutenant, and David Lesley, a man of greater 
 military talents than either, was his major-general. Their 
 presence contributed greatly to a decisive victory 
 which the Parliament forces gained at Marston 
 Moor ; and, indeed, as was to be expected from their 
 numbers and discipline, quickly served to give that party the 
 preponderance in the field. 
 
 But while the Scottish auxiliaries were actively serving the 
 common cause of the Parliament in England, the courageous 
 and romantic enterprise of the Earl of Montrose, advanced by 
 the King to the dignity of Marquis, broke out in a train of 
 success, which threatened to throw Scotland itself into the 
 hands of the King and his friends. This nobleman's bold 
 genius, when the royalist party in Scotland seemed totally 
 crushed and dispersed, devised the means of assembling them 
 together, and of menacing the Convention of Estates with the 
 destruction of their power at home, even at the moment when 
 they hoped to establish the Presbyterian Church in both king- 
 doms, by the success of the army which they had despatched 
 into England. 
 
 After obtaining his liberation from imprisonment, Montrose 
 had repaired to England, and suggested to the King a plan of 
 operations to be executed by a body of Irish, to be despatched 
 by the Earl of Antrim from the county of Ulster, and landed 
 in the West Highlands. With these he proposed to unite a 
 force collected from the Highland clans, who were disinclined 
 to the Presbyterian government, great enemies to the Marquis 
 of Argyle, and attached to the Royal cause, because they re- 
 garded the King as a chieftain whose clan was in rebellion 
 against him, and who, therefore, deserved the support of every 
 faithful mountaineer. The promise of pay, to which they had 
 never been accustomed, and the certainty of booty, would, as 
 Montrose judiciously calculated, readily bring many chieftains 
 and clans to the Royal Standard. The powerful family of the 
 Gordons, in Aberdeenshire, who, besides enjoying almost 
 princely authority over the numerous gentlemen of their family, 
 had extensive influence among the mountain tribes in their
 
 1644 MONTROSE'S PLANS 463 
 
 neighbourhood, or, in the Scottish phrase, " could command a 
 great Highland following," might also be reckoned upon with 
 certainty ; as they had been repeatedly in arms for the King, 
 had not been put down without a stout resistance, and were still 
 warmly disposed towards the Royal cause. The support of 
 many of the nobility and gentry in the north, might also be 
 regarded as probable, should Montrose be able to collect a con- 
 siderable force. The Episcopal establishment, so odious to the 
 lords and barons of the southern and western parts of Scotland, 
 was popular in the north. The northern barons were displeased 
 with the extreme strictness of the Presbyterian clergy, and dis- 
 satisfied with the power they had often assumed of interfering 
 with the domestic arrangements of families, under pretext of 
 maintaining moral discipline. Finally, there were in all parts 
 of Scotland active and daring men disappointed of obtaining 
 employment or preferment under the existing government, and 
 therefore willing to join in any enterprise, however desperate, 
 which promised a change. 
 
 All this was known to the Convention of Estates ; but they 
 had not fully estimated the magnitude of the danger. Mon- 
 trose's personal talents were, to a certain extent, admitted, 
 but ordinary men were incapable of estimating such a character 
 as his; and he was generally esteemed a vain, though able 
 young man, whose remarkable ambition was capable of urging 
 him into rash and impracticable undertakings. The great 
 power of the Marquis of Argyle was relied upon as a sufficient 
 safeguard against any attempt on the West Highlands, and his 
 numerous, brave, and powerful clan had long kept all the other 
 tribes of that country in a species of awe, if not of subjection. 
 
 But the character of the Highlanders was estimated accord- 
 ing to a sort of calculation, which time had rendered very 
 erroneous. In the former days of Scotland, when the Low- 
 lands were inhabited by men as brave, and much better armed 
 and disciplined than the mountaineers, the latter had indeed 
 often shown themselves alert as light troops, unwearied in pre- 
 datory excursions ; but had been generally, from their tumul- 
 tuary charge, liable to defeat, either from a steady body of 
 spearmen, who received their onset with lowered lances, or 
 from an attack of the feudal chivalry of the Lowlands, com- 
 pletely armed and well mounted. At Harlaw, Corrichie, Glen- 
 livat, and on many other occasions, the irregular forces of the
 
 464 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLI1 
 
 Highlands had been defeated by an inferior number of their 
 Lowland opponents. 
 
 These recollections might lead the governors of Scotland, 
 during the civil war, to hold a Highland army in low estima- 
 tion. But, if such was their opinion, it was adopted without 
 considering that half a century of uninterrupted peace had ren- 
 dered the Lowlander much less warlike, while the Highlander, 
 who always went armed, was familiar with the use of the 
 weapons which he constantly wore, and had a greater love for 
 fighting than the Lowland peasant, who, called from the peace- 
 ful occupations of the farm, and only prepared by a few days' 
 drill, was less able to encounter the unwonted dangers of a 
 field of battle. The burghers, who made a formidable part of 
 the array of the Scottish army in former times, were now still 
 more unwarlike than the peasant, being not only without skill 
 in arms, and little accustomed to danger, but deficient also in 
 the personal habits of exercise which the rustic had preserved. 
 This great and essential difference between the Highlander and 
 Lowlander of modern days could scarcely be estimated in the 
 middle of the seventeenth century, the causes by which it was 
 brought about being gradual, and attracting little attention. 
 
 Montrose's first plan was to collect a body of royalist horse 
 on the frontiers of England, to burst at once into the centre of 
 Scotland at their head, and force his way to Stirling, where a 
 body of cavaliers had promised to assemble and unite with him. 
 The expedition was disconcerted by a sort of mutiny among 
 the English horse who had joined him ; in consequence of 
 which, Montrose disbanded his handful of followers, and ex- 
 horted them to make their way to the King, or to the nearest 
 body of men in arms for the royal cause, while he himself 
 adopted a new and more desperate plan. He took with him 
 only two friends, and disguised himself as the groom of one of 
 them, whom he followed, ill mounted and worse dressed, and 
 leading a spare horse. They called themselves gentlemen be- 
 longing to Leven's army ; for, of course, if Montrose had been 
 discovered by the Covenanting party, a rigorous captivity was 
 the least he might expect. At one time he seemed on the 
 point of being detected. A straggling soldier passed his two 
 companions, and coming up to Montrose, saluted him respect- 
 fully by his name and title. Montrose tried to persuade him 
 that he was mistaken ; bat the man persisted, though with the
 
 1644 ESCAPE OF MONTROSE 466 
 
 utmost respect and humility of deportment. " Do I not know 
 my noble Lord of Montrose ?" he said; "But go your way 
 and God be with you." The circumstance alarmed Montrose 
 and his companions ; but the poor fellow was faithful, and 
 never betrayed his old leader. 
 
 In this disguise he reached the verge of the Highlands, 
 and lay concealed in the house of his relation, Graham of Inch- 
 braco, and afterwards, for still greater safety, in an obscure 
 hut on the Highland frontier, while he despatched spies in 
 every direction, to bring him intelligence of the state of 
 the Royalist party. Bad news came from all quarters. The 
 Marquis of Huntly had taken arms hastily and imprudently, 
 and had been defeated and compelled to fly ; while Gordon 
 of Haddow, the most active and gallant gentleman of the 
 name, was made prisoner, and, to strike terror into the rest 
 of the clan, was publicly executed by order of the Scottish 
 Parliament. 
 
 Montrose's spirit was not to be broken even by this dis- 
 appointment ; and, while anxiously awaiting further intelligence, 
 an indistinct rumour reached him that a body of soldiers from 
 Ireland had landed in the West Highlands, and were wandering 
 in the mountains, followed and watched by Argyle with a 
 strong party of his clan. Shortly after, he learned, by a 
 messenger despatched on purpose, that this was the promised 
 body of auxiliaries sent to him from Ulster by the Earl of 
 Antrim. Their commander was Alaster MacDonald, a Scoto- 
 Irishman, I believe, of the Antrim family. He was called 
 Coll Kittoch, or Colkitto, from his being left-handed; a very 
 brave and daring man, but vain and opinionative, and wholly 
 ignorant of regular warfare. Montrose sent orders to him to 
 march with all speed into the district of Athole, and despatched 
 emissaries to raise the gentlemen of that country in arms, as 
 they were generally well affected to the King's cause. He 
 himself set out to join this little band, attired in an ordinary 
 Highland garb, and accompanied only by Inchbraco as his 
 guide. The Irish were surprised and disappointed to see their 
 expected general appear so poorly dressed and attended; nor 
 had Montrose greater reason to congratulate himself on the 
 appearance of his army. The force which was assembled did 
 not exceed fifteen hundred Irish, instead of the thousands 
 promised, and these were but indifferently armed and appointed, 
 
 30
 
 4G6 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLII 
 
 while only a few Highlanders from Badenoch were yet come to 
 the appointed rendezvous. 
 
 These active mountain warriors, however, few as they were, 
 had, a day or two before, come to blows with the Covenanters. 
 MacPherson of Cluny, chief of his name, had sent out a party 
 of men, under MacPherson of Invereshie, to look out for 
 Montrose, who was anxiously expected in the Highlands. They 
 beheld the approach of a detached body of horse, which they 
 concluded was the escort of their expected general But when 
 they drew nearer, the MacPhersons found it to be several troops 
 of the cavalry of the Covenanters, commanded by Colonel 
 Herries, and quartered in Glencairn, for the purpose of keeping 
 the Highlanders in check. While the horsemen were advancing 
 in formidable superiority of numbers, Invereshie, who was 
 drawing up his Highlanders for action, observed one of them 
 in the act of stooping ; and as he lifted his stick to strike him 
 for such conduct in the face of the enemy, the Highlander 
 arose, and proved to be MacPherson of Dalifour, one of the 
 boldest men of the clan. Much surprised, Invereshie demanded 
 how he, of all men, could think of stooping before an enemy. 
 " I was only fastening a spur on the heel of my brogue," said 
 Dalifour, with perfect composure. " A spur ! and for what 
 purpose, at such a tune and place as this ? " asked Invereshie. 
 H I intend to have a good horse before the day is over," 
 answered the clansman with the same coolness. Dalifour 
 kept his word; for the Lowland horse, disconcerted by a 
 smart fire, and the broken nature of the ground, being worsted 
 in the first onset, he got possession of a charger, on which he 
 followed the pursuit, and brought in two prisoners. 
 
 The report of this skirmish gave a good specimen to Mon- 
 trose of the mettle of the mountaineers, while the subsequent 
 appearance of the Atholemen, eight hundred strong, and the 
 enthusiastic shouts with which they received their general, 
 soon gave confidence to the light-hearted Irishmen. Montrose 
 instantly commenced his march upon Strathern, and crossed 
 the Tay. He had scarce done so, when he discovered on the 
 hill of Buchanty a body of about four hundred men, who, he 
 had the satisfaction to learn by his scouts, were commanded by 
 two of his own particular friends, Lord Kilpont and Sir John 
 Drummond. They had taken arms, on hearing that a body of 
 Irish were traversing the country ; and learning that they were
 
 1 644 BATTLE OF TIPPERMUIR 467 
 
 there under Moutrose's command, for the King's service, they 
 immediately placed themselves and their followers under his 
 orders. 
 
 Montrose received these succours in good time, for while 
 Argyle pursued him with a large body of his adherents, who 
 had followed the track of the Irish, Lord Elcho, the Earl of 
 Tullibardine, and Lord Drummoud, had collected an army of 
 Lowlanders to protect the city of Perth, and to fight Montrose, 
 in case he should descend from the hills. Montrose was aware 
 that such an enterprise as he had undertaken could only be 
 supported by an excess of activity and decision. He therefore 
 advanced upon the forces of Elcho, whom he found, on the 1st 
 September 1644, drawn up in good order in a large plain called 
 Tippermuir, within three miles of Perth. They were nearly 
 double Moutrose's army in number, and much encouraged by 
 numerous ministers, who exhorted them to fight valiantly, and 
 promised them certain victory. They had cannon also, and 
 cavalry, whereas Montrose had no artillery, and only three 
 horses, in his army. After a skirmish with the cavalry of his 
 opponents, who were beaten off, Montrose charged with the 
 Highlanders, under a heavy fire from his Irish musketeers. 
 They burst into the ranks of the enemy with irresistible fury, 
 and compelled them to fly. Once broken, the superiority of 
 numbers became useless, as the means of supporting a main 
 body by reserves was not then known or practised. The 
 Covenanters fled in the utmost terror and confusion, but the 
 light-footed Highlanders did great execution in the pursuit. 
 Many honest burghers, distressed by the extraordinary speed 
 which they were compelled to exert, broke their wind, and died 
 in consequence. Montrose sustained little or no loss. 
 
 The town of Perth surrendered, and for this act a long string 
 of reasons were given, which are rather amusingly stated in a 
 letter from the ministers of that town ; but we have only space 
 to mention a few of them. First, it is alleged, that out of 
 Elcho's defeated army only about twelve of the Fifeshire men 
 offered themselves to the magistrates in defence of the town, 
 unarmed, and most of them were pot-valiant from liquor. 
 Secondly, it is affirmed, that the citizens had concealed them- 
 selves in cellars and vaults, where they lay panting in vain 
 endeavours to recover the breath which they had wasted in 
 their retreat, scarcely finding words enough to tell the provost
 
 468 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLH 
 
 " That their hearts were away, and that they would fight no 
 more though they should be killed." Thirdly, the letter states, 
 that if the citizens had had the inclination to stand out, they 
 had no means of resistance, most of them having flung away 
 their weapons in their flight Finally, the courage of the 
 defenders was overpowered by the sight of the enemy, drawn up 
 like so many hellhounds before the gates of the town, their 
 hands deeply dyed in the blood recently shed, and demanding, 
 with hideous cries, to be led to further slaughter. The 
 magistrates perhaps deserve no blame, if they capitulated in 
 such circumstances, to avoid the horrors of a storm. But their 
 conduct shows, at the same time, how much the people of the 
 Lowlands had degenerated in point of military courage. 
 
 Perth consequently opened its gates to the victor. But 
 Argyle, whose northern army had been augmented by a con- 
 siderable body of cavalry, was now approaching with a force, 
 against which Montrose could not pretend to defend an open 
 town. He abandoned Perth, therefore, and marched into 
 Angus-shire, hoping he might find adherents in that county. 
 Accordingly, he was there joined by the old Earl of Airlie and 
 two of his sons, who never forsook him in success or disaster. 
 
 This accession of strength was counterbalanced by a shocking 
 event. There was a Highland gentleman in Montrose's camp, 
 named James Stewart of Ardvoirlich, whose birth had been 
 attended with some peculiar circumstances, which, though they 
 lead me from my preseut subject, I cannot refrain from 
 noticing. While his mother was pregnant there came to the 
 house of Ardvoirlich a band of outlaws, called Children of the 
 Mist, Macgregors, some say, others call them Macdonalds of 
 Ardnamurchan. They demanded food, and the lady caused 
 bread and cheese to be placed on the table, and went into the 
 kitchen to order a better meal to be made ready, such being 
 the unvarying process of Highland hospitality. When the 
 poor lady returned, she saw upon the table, with its mouth 
 stuffed full of food, the bloody head of her brother, Drummond 
 of Drummondernoch, whom the outlaws had met and murdered 
 in the wood. The unhappy woman shrieked, ran wildly into 
 the forest, where, notwithstanding strict search, she could 
 not be found for many weeks. At length she was secured, 
 but in a state of insanity, which doubtless was partly com- 
 municated to the infant which was born shortly after. The lad,
 
 1644 MURDER OF KILPONT 469 
 
 however, grew up. He was an uncertain and dangerous 
 character, but distinguished for his muscular strength, which 
 was so great, that he could, in grasping the hand of another 
 person, force the blood from under the nails. This man was 
 much favoured by the Lord Kilpont, whose accession to the 
 King's party we lately mentioned ; indeed, he was admitted to 
 share that young nobleman's tent and bed. It appears that 
 Ardvoirlich had disapproved of the step which his friend had 
 taken in joining Montrose, and that he had solicited the young 
 lord to join him in deserting from the royal army, and, it is 
 even said, in murdering the general. Lord Kilpont rejected 
 these proposals with disdain ; when, either offended at his 
 expressions, or fearful of being exposed in his treacherous 
 purpose, Ardvoirlich stabbed his confiding friend mortally with 
 his dagger. He then killed the sentinel who kept guard on 
 the tent, and escaped to the camp of Argyle, where he received 
 preferment. Montrose was awaked by the tumult which 
 this melancholy event excited in the camp, and rushing into 
 the crowd of soldiers, had the unhappiness to see the bleeding 
 corpse of his noble friend thus basely and treacherously mur- 
 dered. The death of this young nobleman was a great loss to 
 the royal cause. 
 
 Montrose, so much inferior in numbers to his enemies, could 
 not well form any fixed plan of operations. He resolved to 
 make up for this, by moving with the most extraordinary celerity 
 from one part of the country to another, so as to strike severe 
 blows where they were least expected, and take the chance of 
 awakening the drooping spirit of the Royalists. He therefore 
 marched suddenly on Aberdeen, to endeavour to arouse the 
 Gordons to arms, and defeat any body of Covenanters which 
 might overawe the King's friends in that country. His army 
 was now, however, greatly reduced in numbers ; for the High- 
 landers, who had no idea of serving for a whole campaign, had 
 most of them returned home to their own districts, to lodge 
 their booty in safety, and get in their harvest. It was, on all 
 occasions, the greatest inconvenience attending a Highland 
 army, that after a battle, whether they won the day or lost it, 
 they were certain to leave their standard in great numbers, and 
 held it their undoubted right to do so ; insomuch, that a victory 
 thinned their ranks as much as a defeat is apt to do those of 
 other armies. It is true, that they could be gathered again
 
 470 TALES OP A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLII 
 
 with equal celerity ; but this humour, of deserting at their 
 pleasure, was a principal reason why the brilliant victories of 
 Montrose were productive of few decided results. 1 
 
 On reaching Aberdeen, Montrose hastened to take possession 
 of the bridge of Dee, the principal approach to that town, and 
 having made good this important point, he found himself in 
 front of an army commanded by Lord Burleigh. He had the 
 mortification also to find, that part of a large body of horse in 
 the Covenanting army were Gordons, who had been compelled 
 to take arms in that cause by Lord Lewis Gordon, the third 
 son of the Marquis of Huntly, a wild and wilful young man, 
 whose politics differed from those of his father, and upon whom 
 he had once committed a considerable robbery. 
 
 Finding himself greatly inferior in horse, of which he had 
 not fifty, Montrose intermingled with his cavalry some of his 
 musketeers, who, for breath and speed, could keep up with the 
 movements of such horse as he possessed. The Gordons, not 
 perhaps very favourable to the side on which they ranked, made 
 an ineffectual attack upon the horse of Montrose, which was 
 repelled. And when the mingled musketeers and cavalry in 
 their turn advanced on them, Lord Lewis's men fled, in spite of 
 his own personal exertions; and Montrose, we are informed, 
 found it possible to move his handful of cavalry to the other 
 wing of his army, and to encounter and defeat the horse of the 
 Covenanters on both flanks successively, with the same wearied 
 party of riders. The terror struck into his opponents by the 
 novelty of mixing musketeers with cavalry, contributed not a 
 little to this extraordinary success. While this was passing, 
 
 1 "Even so lately as during the rebellion of 1745-6, when the young 
 Chevalier Charles Edward, by way of making an example, caused a soldier 
 to be shot for desertion, the Highlanders who composed his army were 
 affected as much by indignation as by fear. They could not conceive any 
 principle of justice upon which a man's life could be taken, for merely 
 going home when it did not suit him to remain longer with the army. 
 Such had been the uniform practice of their fathers. When a battle was 
 over, the campaign was, in their opinion, ended ; if it was lost, they sought 
 safety in their mountains if won, they returned there to secure their 
 booty. At other times they had their cattle to look after, and their har- 
 vests to sow or reap, without which their families would have perished for 
 want This circumstance serves to show, even if history had not made 
 us acquainted with the same fact, that the Highlanders had never been 
 accustomed to make war with the view of permanent conquest, but only 
 with tho hope of deriving temporary advantage, or deciding some imme- 
 diate quarrel." Legend of Afontrosf, chap. zv.
 
 1644 SACK OK ABERDEEN 471 
 
 the two bodies of infantry cannonaded each other, for Montrose 
 had in the field the guns which he took at Tibbennuir. The 
 Covenanters had the superiority in this part of the action, but 
 it did not daunt the Royalists. The gaiety of an Irishman, 
 whose leg was shot off by a cannon-ball, so that it hung only 
 by a bit of skin, gave spirit to all around him. " Go on," he 
 cried, " this bodes me promotion ; as I am now disabled for the 
 foot service, I am certain my lord the Marquis will make me a 
 trooper." Montrose left the courage of his men no time to 
 subside he led them daringly up to the enemy's teeth, and 
 succeeded in a desperate charge, routing the Covenanters, and 
 pursuing them into the town and through the streets. Stormed 
 as it was by such a tumultuary army, Aberdeen and 
 its inhabitants suffered greatly. Many were killed in 
 the streets ; and the cruelty of the Irish in particular 
 was so great, that they compelled the wretched citizens to strip 
 themselves of their clothes before they killed them, to prevent 
 their being soiled with blood ! The women durst not lament 
 their husbands or their fathers slaughtered in their presence, 
 nor inter the dead which remained unburied in the streets until 
 the Irish departed. Montrose necessarily gave way to acts of 
 pillage and cruelty, which he could not prevent, because he was 
 unprovided with money to pay his half -barbarous soldiery. 
 Yet the town of Aberdeen had two reasons for expecting better 
 treatment : First, that it had always inclined to the King's 
 party ; and, secondly, that Montrose himself had, when acting 
 for the Covenanters, been the agent in oppressing for its loyalty 
 the very city which his troops were n^w plundering on the 
 opposite score. 
 
 Argyle always continued following Montrose with a superior 
 army, but, it would appear, not with a very anxious desire to 
 overtake him. With a degree of activity that seemed incred- 
 ible, Montrose marched up the Spey, hoping still to raise the 
 Gordons. But that clan too strongly resented his former con- 
 duct towards them, as General for the Covenant, besides being 
 sore with recollections of their recent check at the bridge of 
 Dee ; and, on all these accounts, declined to join him. On the 
 other hand, the men of Moray, who were very zealous against 
 Montrose, appeared on the northern bank of the Spey to oppose 
 his passage. Thus hemmed in on all sides, and headed back 
 like an animal of chase from the course he intended to pursue,
 
 472 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLI1 
 
 Montrose and his little array showed an extremity of courage. 
 They hid their cannon in a bog, destroyed what they had of 
 heavy baggage, entered Badenoch, where the Clan Chattan had 
 shown themselves uniformly friendly, and descended from 
 thence upon Athole, and so on to Angusshire After several 
 long and rapid marches, Montrose returned into Strathbogie, 
 recrossing the great chain of the Grampians ; and, clinging 
 still to the hope of being able to raise the gentlemen of the 
 name of Gordon, who were naturally disposed to join the royal 
 standard, again repaired to Aberdeenshire. 
 
 Here this bold leader narrowly escaped a great danger. 
 His army was considerably dispersed, and he himself lying at 
 the castle of Fyvie, when he found himself at once threatened, 
 and nearly surrounded, by Argyle and Lothian, at the head of 
 very superior forces. A part of the enemy had already occu- 
 pied the approach to Montrose's position by means of ditches 
 and enclosures, through which they had insinuated themselves, 
 and his own men were beginning to look out of countenance, 
 when Montrose, disguising his apprehensions, called to a gay 
 and gallant young Irish officer, as if he had been imposing a 
 trifling piece of duty, "What are you doing, O'Kean? can 
 you not chase these troublesome rascals out of the ditches and 
 enclosures?" O'Kean obeyed the command in the spirit in 
 which it was given ; and, driving the enemy before him, got 
 possession of some of their gunpowder, which was much 
 needed in Montrose's army. The remark of the Irishman on 
 this occasion, who heavily complained of the neglect of the 
 enemy in omitting to leave a supply of ball, corresponding to 
 the powder, showed the confidence with which Montrose had 
 been able to inspire his men. 
 
 The Earl of Lothian, on the other side, came with five 
 troops of horse upon Montrose's handful of cavalry, amounting 
 scarcely to fifty men. But Montrose had, on the present 
 occasion, as at the bridge of Dee, sustained his troopers by 
 mingling them with musketry. So that Lothian's men, re- 
 ceiving an unexpected and galling fire, wheeled about, and 
 could not again be brought to advance. Many hours were 
 spent in skirmishing, with advantage on Montrose's part, and 
 loss on that of Argyle, until at length the former thought it 
 most advisable to retreat from Fyvie to Strathbogie. 
 
 On the road he was deserted by many Lowland gentlemen
 
 1644 MONTKOSE'S CAMPAIGN 473 
 
 who had joined him, and who saw his victories were followed 
 with no better results than toilsome marches among wilds, 
 where it was nearly impossible to provide subsistence for man 
 or horse, and which the approach of winter was about to render 
 still more desolate. They left his army, therefore, promising 
 to return in summer ; and of all his Lowland adherents, the 
 old Earl of Airlie and his sons alone remained. They had paid 
 dearly for their attachment to the Royal cause, 
 
 i , . 1JJJ.1- j v 1 Jnne 1MO - 
 
 Argyle having plundered their estates, and burnt 
 their principal mansion, the " Bonnie house of Airlie," situated 
 on the river Isla, the memory of which conflagration is still 
 preserved in Scottish song. 
 
 But the same circumstances which wearied out the patience 
 of Montrose's Lowland followers, rendered it impossible for 
 Argyle to keep the field ; and he sent his army into winter 
 quarters, in full confidence that his enemy was cooped up for 
 the season in the narrow and unprovided country of Athole 
 and its neighbourhood, where he might be suffered to exist 
 with little inconvenience to the rest of Scotland, till spring 
 should enable the Covenanters to attack him with a superior 
 force. In the meantime, the Marquis of Argyle returned to 
 his own domains. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII 
 
 Invasion of Argyle's Country by Montrose his Victories is defeated 
 by Lesley at Philiphaugh retires to the Highlands, and leaves 
 Scotland 
 
 1644 1645 
 
 IT was about the middle of December that Argyle was residing 
 at his castle of Inverary, in the most perfect confidence that 
 the enemy could not approach him; for he used to say,? he 
 would not for a hundred thousand crowns that any one knew 
 the passes from the eastward into the country of the Campbells. 
 While the powerful Marquis was enjoying the fancied security 
 of his feudal dominions, he was astounded with the intelligence 
 that Montrose, with an army of Highlanders, wading through 
 drifts of snow, scaling precipices, and traversing the mountain - 
 paths, known to none save the solitary shepherd or huntsman,
 
 474 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLIII 
 
 had forced an entry into Argyleshire, which he was laying 
 waste with all the vindictive severity of deadly feud. There 
 was neither time nor presence of mind for defence. The able- 
 bodied men were slaughtered, the cattle driven off, the houses 
 burnt; and the invaders had divided themselves into three 
 bands, to make the devastation more complete. Alarmed by 
 this fierce and unexpected invasion, Argyle embarked on board 
 a fishing-boat, and left his friends and followers to their fate. 
 Montrose continued the work of revenge for nearly a month, 
 and then concluding he had destroyed the influence which 
 Argyle, by the extent of his power, and the supposed strength 
 of his country, had possessed over the minds of the High- 
 landers, he withdrew towards Inverness, with the purpose of 
 organising a general gathering of the clans. But he had scarce 
 made this movement, when he learned that his rival, Argyle, 
 had returned into the Western Highlands with some Lowland 
 forces; that he had called around him his numerous clan, 
 burning to revenge the wrongs which they had sustained, and 
 was lying with a strong force near the old castle of Inverlochy, 
 situated at the western extremity of the chain of lakes through 
 which the Caledonian Canal is now conducted. 
 
 The news at once altered Montrose's plans. 
 
 He returned upon Argyle by a succession of the most diffi- 
 cult mountain-passes covered with snow ; and the vanguard of 
 the Campbells saw themselves suddenly engaged with that of 
 their implacable enemy. Both parties lay all night 
 2 i645. b ' on ^ e ^ r arms J but, by break of day, Argyle betook 
 himself to his galley, and rowing off shore, remained 
 a spectator of the combat, when, by all the rules of duty and 
 gratitude, he ought to have been at the head of his devoted 
 followers. His unfortunate clansmen supported the honour of 
 the name with the greatest courage, and many of the most dis- 
 tinguished fell on the field of battle. Montrose gained a complete 
 victory, which greatly extended his influence over the Highlands 
 and in proportion diminished that of his discomfited rival. 
 
 Having collected what force he could, Montrose now marched 
 triumphantly to the north-east ; and in the present successful 
 posture of his affairs at length engaged the Gordons to join 
 him with a good body of cavalry, commanded by their young 
 chief, Lord Gordon. The Convention of Estates were now most 
 seriously alarmed. While Montrose had roamed through the
 
 1645 STORMING OP DUNDEE 475 
 
 Highlands, retreating before a superior enemy, and every 
 moment apparently on the point of being overwhelmed, his 
 progress was regarded as a distant danger. But he was now 
 threatening the low country, and the ruling party were not so 
 confident of their strength there as to set so bold an adventurer 
 at defiance. They called from the army in England General 
 Baillie, an officer of skill and character, and Sir John Urry, or, 
 as the English called him, Hurry, a brave and good partisan, 
 but a mere soldier of fortune, who had changed sides more than 
 once during the civil war. 
 
 These generals commanded a body of veteran troops, with 
 which they manoeuvred to exclude Montrose from the southern 
 districts, and prevent his crossing the Tay, or Forth. At the 
 same time the mandate of the Marquis of Huntly, or the 
 intrigues of Lord Lewis Gordon, again recalled most of the 
 Gordons from Montrose's standard, and his cavalry was re- 
 duced to one hundred and fifty. He was compelled once more 
 to retire to the mountains, but desirous to dignify his retreat 
 by some distinguished action, he resolved to punish the town 
 of Dundee for their steady adherence to the cause of the 
 Covenant. Accordingly, suddenly appearing before it with a 
 chosen body selected for the service, he stormed the 
 place on three points at once. The Highlanders and 
 Irish, with incredible fury, broke open the gates, and forced an 
 entrance. They were dispersing in quest of liquor and plunder, 
 when at the very moment that Montrose threatened to set the 
 town on fire, he received intelligence, that Baillie and Urry, 
 with four thousand men, were within a mile of the place. The 
 crisis required all the activity of Montrose ; and probably no 
 other authority than his would have been able to withdraw the 
 men from their revelling and plundering to get his army into 
 order, and to effect a retreat to the mountains, which he safely 
 accomplished in the face of his numerous enemies, and with a 
 degree of skill which established his military character as firmly 
 as any of his victories. 
 
 Montrose was well seconded in this difficulty, by the hardi- 
 hood and resolution of his men, who are said to have marched 
 about sixty miles, and to have passed three days and two nights 
 in manoeuvring and fighting, without either food or refresh- 
 ment. In this manner that leader repeatedly baffled the numer- 
 ous forces and able generals who were employed against him.
 
 476 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLIH 
 
 The great check upon his enterprise was the restlessness of the 
 Highlanders, and the caprice of the gentlemen who formed his 
 cavalry, who all went and came at their own pleasure. 
 
 I have told you that the Gordons had been withdrawn from 
 Montrose's standard, contrary to their <nmi inclinations, by the 
 command of Huntly, or the address of Lord Lewis Gordon. 
 By employing his followers in enterprises in which the plunder 
 was certain and the danger small, this young nobleman collected 
 under his standard all those who were reluctant to share the 
 toilsome marches, military hardships, and bloody fights to which 
 they were led under that of Montrose. Hence a rhyme, not 
 yet forgotten in Aberdeenshire, 
 
 " If you with Lord Lewis go, 
 
 You'll get reif and prey enough ; 
 If you with Montrose go, 
 
 You'll get grief and wae enough. " 
 
 But the Lord Gordon, Lewis's elder brother, continuing 
 attached in the warmest manner to Montrose, was despatched 
 by him to bring back the gentlemen of his warlike family, and 
 his influence soon assembled considerable forces. General 
 Baillie, learning this, detached Urry, his colleague, with a force 
 which he thought sufficient to destroy Lord Gordon, while he 
 himself proposed to engage the attention of Montrose till that 
 point was gained. 
 
 But Montrose, penetrating the intention of the Covenanting 
 generals, eluded Baillie's attempts to bring him to action, and 
 traversed the mountains of the north like a whirlwind, to sup- 
 port Lord Gordon and crush Urry. He accomplished his first 
 object ; the second appeared more difficult. Urry had been 
 joined by the Covenanters of the shire of Moray, with the Earls 
 of Seaforth, Sutherland, and others who maintained the same 
 cause, and had thus collected an army more numerous than that 
 of Montrose, even when united to Lord Gordon. 
 
 Montrose prepared, nevertheless, to give battle at the village 
 
 of Aulderne, and drew up his men in an unusual manner, to 
 
 conceal his inequality of force. The village, which 
 
 4t i645. ay i s situated on an eminence, with high ground behind, 
 
 was surrounded by enclosures on each side and in 
 
 front He stationed on the right of the hamlet Alexander 
 
 MacDouald, called Colkitto, with four hundred Irishmen and
 
 1645 BATTLE OF AULDEBNE 477 
 
 Highlanders, commanding them to maintain a defensive combat 
 only, and giving them strict orders not to sally from some strong 
 sheepfolds and enclosures, which afforded the advantages of a 
 fortified position. As he wished to draw the attention of the 
 enemy towards that point, he gave this wing charge of the 
 royal standard, which was usually displayed where he com- 
 manded in person. On the left side of the village of Aulderne, 
 he drew up the principal part of his force, be himself command- 
 ing the infantry, and Lord Gordon the cavalry. His two wings 
 being thus formed, Montrose had in reality no centre force 
 whatever ; but a few resolute men were posted in front of the 
 village, and his cannon being placed in the same line made it 
 appear as if the houses covered a body of infantry. 
 
 Urry, deceived by these dispositions, attacked with a pre- 
 ponderating force the position of MacDonald on the right. 
 Colkitto beat the assailants back with the Irish musketeers, 
 and the bows and arrows of the Highlanders, who still used 
 these ancient missile weapons. But when the enemy, renewing 
 their attack, taunted MacDonald with cowardice for remaining 
 under shelter of the sheepfolds, that leader, whose bravery 
 greatly excelled his discretion, sallied forth from his fastness, 
 contrary to Moutrose's positive command, to show he was not 
 averse to fight on equal ground. The superiority of numbers, 
 and particularly of cavalry, which was instantly opposed to him, 
 soon threw his men into great disorder, and they could with 
 difficulty be rallied by the desperate exertions of Colkitto, who 
 strove to make amends for his error, by displaying the utmost 
 personal valour. 
 
 A trusty officer was despatched to Montrose to let him 
 know the state of affairs. The messenger found him on the 
 point of joining battle, and whispered in his ear that Colkitto 
 was defeated. This only determined Montrose to pursue with 
 the greater audacity the plan of battle which he had adopted. 
 " What are we doing t " he called out to Lord Gordon ; 
 " MacDonald has been victorious on the right, and if we do 
 not make haste, lie will carry off all the honours of the day." 
 Lord Gordon instantly charged with the gentlemen of his 
 name, and beat the Covenanters' horse oil' the field ; but the 
 foot, though deserted by the horse, stood firm for some time, 
 for they were veteran troops. At length they were routed on 
 every point, and compelled to fly with great loss.
 
 478 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLIII 
 
 Montrose failed not instantly to lead succours to the relief 
 of his right wing, which was in great peril. Colkitto had got 
 his men again secured in the enclosures; he himself, having 
 been all along the last to retreat, was now defending the en- 
 trance sword in hand, and with a target on his left arm. The 
 pikemen pressed him so hard as to fix their spears in his target, 
 while he repeatedly freed himself of them by cutting the heads 
 from the shafts, in threes and fours at a time, by the unerring 
 sweep of his broadsword. 
 
 While Colkitto and his followers were thus hard pressed, 
 Montrose and his victorious troops appeared, and the face of 
 affairs was suddenly changed. Urry's horse fled, but the foot, 
 which were the strength of his army, fought bravely, and fell 
 in the ranks which they occupied. Two thousand men, about 
 a third of Urry's army, were slain in the battle of Aulderne, 
 and, completely disabled by the overthrow, that commander 
 was compelled once more to unite his scattered forces with 
 those of Baillie. 
 
 After some marching and counter -marching, the armies 
 again found themselves in the neighbourhood of each other, 
 near to the village of Alford. 
 
 Montrose occupied a strong position on a hill, and it was 
 said that the cautious Baillie would have avoided the encounter, 
 had it not been that, having crossed the river Don, in the 
 belief that Moutrose was in full retreat, he only discovered his 
 purpose of giving battle when it was too late to decline it. The 
 number of infantry was about two thousand in each army. But 
 Baillie had more than double his opponent's number of cavalry. 
 Montrose's, indeed, were gentlemen, and therefore in the 
 day of battle were more to be relied on than mere hirelings. 
 The Gordons dispersed the Covenanting horse, on the first 
 shock ; and the musketeers, throwing down their muskets, and 
 mingling in the tumult with their swords drawn, prevented the 
 scattered cavalry from rallying. But as Lord Gordon threw 
 himself, for the second time, into the heat of the fight, he fell 
 from his horse, mortally wounded by a shot from one of the 
 fugitives. This accident, which gave the greatest distress to 
 Montrose, suspended the exertions of the cavalry, who, chiefly 
 friends, kinsmen, and vassals of the deceased, flocked around 
 him to lament the general loss. But the veterans of Montrose, 
 charging in separate columns of six and ten men deep, along a
 
 1 645 CONVENTION OF ESTATES 479 
 
 line of three men only, broke the battle array of the Cove- 
 nanters on various points, and utterly destroyed the remnant of 
 Baillie's array, though they defended themselves bravely. This 
 battle was fought 2d July 1645. 
 
 These repeated victories gave such lustre to Montrose's 
 arms, that he was now joined by the Highland clans in great 
 numbers, and by many of the Lowland anti-Covenanters, who 
 had before held back, from doubt of his success in BO unequal a 
 contest. 
 
 On the other hand, the Convention of Estates, supported by 
 the Counsels of Argyle, who was bold in council though timid 
 in battle, persevered in raising new troops, notwithstanding 
 their repeated misfortunes and defeats. It seemed, indeed, as 
 if Heaven had at this disastrous period an especial controversy 
 with the kingdom of Scotland. To the efforts necessary to 
 keep up and supply their auxiliary army in England, was added 
 the desolation occasioned by a destructive civil war, maintained 
 in the north with the utmost fury, and conducted on both 
 sides with deplorable devastation. To these evils, as if not 
 sufficient to exhaust the resources of a poor country, were now 
 added those of a wide -wasting plague, or pestilence, which 
 raged through all the kingdom, but especially in Edinburgh, 
 the metropolis. The Convention of Estates were driven from 
 the capital by this dreadful infliction, and retreated to Perth, 
 where they assembled a large force under General Baillie, 
 while they ordered a new levy of ten thousand men generally 
 throughout the kingdom. While Lanark, Cassilis, Eglinton, 
 and other lords of the western shires, went to their respective 
 counties to expedite the measure, Montrose, with his usual 
 activity, descended from the mountains at the head of an army, 
 augmented in numbers, and flushed with success. 
 
 He first approached the shores of the Forth, by occupying 
 the shire of Kinross. And here I cannot help mentioning the 
 destruction of a noble castle belonging to the House of Argyle. 
 Its majestic ruins are situated on an eminence occupying a 
 narrow glen of the 0hil chain of hills. In former days, it 
 was called, from the character of its situation perhaps, the 
 castle of Gloom ; and the names of the parish, and the stream 
 by which its banks are washed, had also an ominous sound. 
 The castle of Gloom was situated on the brook of Grief or 
 or Gryfe, and in the parish of Doulour or Dollar. In the six
 
 480 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLIII 
 
 teenth century the Earl of Argyle, the owner of this noble 
 fortress, obtained an act of Parliament for changing its name to 
 Castle Campbell. The feudal hatred of Montrose, and of the 
 clans composing the strength of his army, the vindictive resent- 
 ment also of the Ogilvies, for the destruction of "the Bonnie 
 House of Airlie," and that of the Stirlingshire cavaliers for 
 that of Menstrie, doomed this magnificent pile to flames and 
 ruin. The destruction of many a meaner habitation by the 
 same unscrupulous and unsparing spirit of vengeance has been 
 long forgotten, but the majestic remains of Castle Campbell 
 still excite a sigh in those that view them, over the miseries of 
 civil war. 
 
 After similar acts of ravage, not to be justified, though not 
 unprovoked, Montrose marched westward along the northern 
 margin of the Forth, insulting Perth, where the army of the 
 Covenanters remained in their intrenchments, and even menac- 
 ing the castle of Stirling, which, well garrisoned and strongly 
 situated, defied his means of attack. About six miles above 
 Stirling, Montrose crossed the Forth, by the deep and precari- 
 ous ford which the river presents before its junction with the 
 Teith. Having attained the southern bank, he directed his 
 course westward, with the purpose of dispersing the levies 
 which the western lords were collecting, and doubtless with 
 the view of plundering the country, which had attached itself 
 chiefly to the Covenant. Montrose had, however, scarcely 
 reached Kilsyth, when he received the news that Baillie's army, 
 departing from Perth, had also crossed the Forth, at the bridge 
 of Stirling, and was close at hand. With his usual alacrity, 
 Montrose prepared for battle, which Baillie, had he been left 
 to his own judgment, would have avoided ; for that skilful 
 though unfortunate general knew by experience the talents of 
 Montrose, and that the character of his troops was admirably 
 qualified for a day of combat ; he also considered that an army 
 so composed might be tired out by cautious operations, and 
 entertained the rational hope that the Highlanders and Low- 
 land Cavaliers would alike desert their leader in the course of 
 a protracted and indecisive warfare. But Baillie was no longer 
 the sole commander of the Covenanting army. A Committee 
 of the Estates, consisting of Argyle, Lanark, and Crawford- 
 Lindsay, had been nominated to attend his army, and control 
 hU motions ; and these, especially the Earl of Lindsay, insisted
 
 1 645 BATTLE OF KILSYTH 481 
 
 that the veteran general should risk the last regular army 
 which the Covenanters possessed in Scotland, in the perils of a 
 decisive battle. They marched against Montrose, accordingly, 
 at break of day on the 15th August 1645. 
 
 When Montrose beheld them advance, he exclaimed that it 
 was what he had most earnestly desired. He caused his men 
 to strip to their shirts, in token of their resolution to fight to 
 the death. Meantime the Covenanters approached. Their 
 vanguard attacked an advanced post of Montrose, which occu- 
 pied a strong position among cottages and enclosures. They 
 were beaten off with loss. A thousand Highlanders, with their 
 natural impetuosity, rushed without orders to pursue the fugi- 
 tives, and to assault the troops who were advancing to support 
 them. Two regiments of horse, against whom this mountain 
 torrent directed its fury, became disordered and fell back. Mon- 
 trose saw the decisive moment, and ordered first a troop of horse, 
 under command of Lord Airlie, and afterwards his whole army, 
 to attack the enemy, who had not yet got into line, their rear- 
 guard and centre coming up too slowly to the support of their 
 vanguard. The hideous shout with which the Highlanders 
 charged, their wild appearance, and the extraordinary speed 
 with which they advanced, nearly naked, with broadsword in 
 hand, struck a panic into their opponents, who dispersed with- 
 out any spirited effort to get into line of battle, or maintaia 
 their ground. The Covenanters were beaten off the field, and 
 pursued with indiscriminate slaughter for more than ten miles. 
 Four or five thousand men were slain in the field and in the 
 flight ; and the force of the Convention was for the time entirely 
 broken. 
 
 Montrose was now master, for the moment, of the kingdom 
 of Scotland. Edinburgh surrendered ; Glasgow paid a heavy 
 contribution ; the noblemen and other individuals of distinction 
 who had been imprisoned as Royalists in Edinburgh, and else- 
 where throughout the kingdom, were set at liberty; and so 
 many persons of quality now declared for Montrose, either from 
 attachment to the Royal cause, which they had hitherto con- 
 cealed, or from the probability of its being ultimately successful, 
 that he felt himself in force sufficient to call a Parliament at 
 Glasgow in the King's name. 
 
 Still, however, the success of this heroic leader had only given 
 him possession of the open country ; all the strong fortresses 
 
 31
 
 482 TALKS OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLII1 
 
 were still in possession of the Covenanters ; and it would have 
 required a length of time, and the services of an army regularly 
 disciplined and supplied with heavy artillery, to have reduced 
 the castles of Edinburgh, Stirling, Dumbarton and other places 
 of great strength. But if Montrose had possessed the forces 
 necessary for such a work, he had neither leisure nor inclination 
 to undertake it From the beginning of his extraordinary, and 
 hitherto successful career, he had secretly entertained the dazzling 
 hope of leading a victorious army into England, and replacing 
 King Charles in possession of his disputed authority. It was a 
 daring scheme, and liable to many hazards ; yet if the King's 
 affairs in England had remained in any tolerable condition, 
 especially if there had been any considerable army of Royalists 
 in the north of England to join or co-operate with Montrose, 
 there is no calculating what the talents and genius of such an 
 enterprising leader might have ultimately done in support of the 
 Royal cause. 
 
 But Charles, as I will presently tell you more particularly, 
 had suffered so many and such fatal losses, that it may be 
 justly doubted whether the assistance of Montrose, unless at the 
 head of much larger forces than he could be expected to gather, 
 would have afforded any material assistance against the numerous 
 and well-disciplined army of the Parliament The result of a 
 contest which was never tried can only be guessed at. Montrose 's 
 own hopes and confidence were as lofty as his ambition ; and 
 he did not permit himself to doubt the predictions of those who 
 assured him, that he was doomed to support the tottering throne, 
 and reinstate in safety the falling monarch. 
 
 Impressed with such proud anticipations, he wrote to the King, 
 urging him to advance to the northern border, and form a 
 junction with his victorious army, and concluding his request 
 with the words which Joab, the lieutenant of King David, is 
 recorded in Scripture to have used to the King of Israel, " I 
 have fought against Rabbah, and have taken the city of waters. 
 Now therefore gather the rest of the people together, and en- 
 camp against the city, and take it ; lest I take the city, and it 
 be called after my name." 1 
 
 While Montrose was thus urging King Charles, by the 
 brilliant prospects which he held out, to throw himself on his 
 protection, his own army mouldered away and dispersed, even 
 1 2 Samuel, xii. 27, 28.
 
 1 645 MONTROSE'S ARMY 483 
 
 in a greater degree than had been the case after his less dis- 
 tinguished successes. The Highland clans went home to get in 
 their harvest, and place their spoil in safety. It was needless 
 and useless to refuse them leave, for they were determined to 
 take it. The north country gentlemen also, wearied of the toils 
 of the campaign, left his army in numbers ; so that when 
 Montrose received, by the hands of Sir Robert Spottiswood, the 
 King's commission under the Great Seal, naming him captain- 
 general and lieutenant-governor of Scotland, he commanded a 
 force scarcely more effective than when he was wandering through 
 Athole and Badenoch. The King's orders, however, and his own 
 indomitable spirit of enterprise, determined his march towards 
 the Borders. 
 
 About fifty years before, these districts would have supplied 
 him, even upon the lighting of their beacons, with ten thousand 
 cavalry, as fond of fighting and plunder as any Highlander in 
 his army. But that period, as I have told you, had passed 
 away. The inhabitants of the Border-land had become peace- 
 ful, and the chiefs and lords, whose influence might still have 
 called them out to arms, were hostile to the Crown, or, at best, 
 lukewarm in its cause. The Earl of Buccleuch, and his friends 
 of the name of Scott, who had never forgotten the offence given 
 by the revocation of James's donations to their chief, were 
 violent Covenanters, and had sent a strong clan-regiment with 
 the Earl of Leven and the Scottish auxiliaries. Traquair, 
 Roxburghe, and Hume, all entertained, or affected, regard to 
 the King, but made no effectual effort in raising men. The 
 once formidable name of Douglas, and the exertions of the Earl 
 of Annandale, could only assemble some few troops of horse, 
 whom the historian, Bishop Guthrie, describes as truthless 
 trained bands. Montrose expected to meet a body of more 
 regular cavalry, who were to be despatched from England ; but 
 the King's continued misfortunes prevented him from making 
 such a diversion. 
 
 Meanwhile the Scottish army in England received an account 
 of the despair to which the battle of Kilsyth had reduced the 
 Convention of Estates, and learned that several of its most dis- 
 tinguished members were already exiles, having fled to Berwick 
 and other strong places on the Border, which were garrisoned 
 by the Parliamentary forces. The importance of the crisis was 
 felt, and David Lesley was despatched, at the head of five or six
 
 484 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLIII 
 
 thousand men, chiefly cavalry, and the flower of the Scottish auxili- 
 ary army, with the charge of checking the triumphs of Montrose. 
 
 Lesley crossed the Border at Berwick, and proceeded on his 
 march towards the metropolis, as if it had been his view to get be- 
 tween Montrose and the Highlands, and to prevent his again receiv- 
 ing assistance from his faithful mountaineers. But that sagacious 
 general's intentions were of a more decisive character ; for, learn- 
 ing that Montrose, with his little army lay quartered in profound 
 security near Selkirk, he suddenly altered his inarch, left the 
 Edinburgh road when he came to Edge-bucklingbrae, above 
 Musselburgh, crossed the country to Middleton, and then turn- 
 ing southward, descended the vale of the Gala to Melrose, in 
 which place, and the adjacent hamlets, he quartered his army 
 for the night. 
 
 Montrose's infantry, meanwhile, lay encamped on an elevated 
 ascent, called Philiphaugh, 1 on the left bank of the Ettrick, 
 while his cavalry, with their distinguished general in person, were 
 quartered in the town of Selkirk j a considerable stream being 
 thus interposed betwixt the two parts of his army, which 
 should have been so stationed as to be ready to support each 
 other on a sudden alarm. But Montrose had no information 
 of the vicinity of Lesley, though the Covenanters had passed the 
 night within four miles of his camp. This indicates that he 
 must have been very ill served by his own patrols, and that his 
 cause must have been unpopular in that part of the country, 
 since a single horseman, at the expense of half an hour's gallop, 
 might have put him fully on his guard. 
 
 1 "The river Ettrick, immediately after its junction with the Yarrow, 
 and previous to its falling into the Tweed, make* a large sweep to the 
 southward, and winds almost beneath the lofty banks on which the town 
 of Selkirk stands : having upon the northern side a large and level plain, 
 extending in an easterly direction, from a hill covered with natural copse- 
 wood, called the Harehead-wood, to the high ground which forms the banks 
 of the Tweed, near Sumlerland Hall. This plain is called Philiphaugh,* 
 it is about a mile and a half in length, and a quarter of a mile broad ; and 
 being defended, to the northward, by the hills which separate Tweed from 
 Yarrow, by the river Ettrick in front, and by the high grounds, already 
 mentioned, on each flank, it forms, at once, a convenient and a secure field 
 of encampment." 
 
 * " The Scottish language is rich in words expressive of local situation. 
 The single word hough conveys to a Scotsman almost all that I have 
 endeavoured to explain in the text by circumlocutory description." - 
 Uimtrelsy of the ScoUith Border, vol. ii. pp. 170-171.
 
 1645 BATTLE OF PHILIPHAUGH 485 
 
 On the morniug of the 13th September 1645 Lesley, under 
 cover of a thick mist, approached Montrose's camp, and had the 
 merit, by his dexterity and vigilance, of surprising him whom 
 his enemies had never before found unprepared. The Covenant- 
 ing general divided his troops into two divisions, and attacked 
 both flanks of the enemy at the same time. Those on the left 
 made but a tumultuary and imperfect resistance ; the right 
 wing, supported by a wood, fought in a manner worthy of their 
 general's fame. Montrose himself, roused by the firing and 
 noise of the action, hastily assembled his cavalry, crossed the 
 Ettrick, and made a desperate attempt to recover the victory, 
 omitting nothing which courage or skill could achieve, to rally 
 his followers. But when at length left with only thirty horse, 
 he was compelled to fly, and retreating up the Yarrow, crossed 
 into the vale of Tweed, and reached Peebles, where some of his 
 followers joined him. 
 
 The defeated army suffered severely. The prisoners taken 
 by the Covenanters were massacred without mercy, and in cold 
 blood. They were shot in the courtyard of Newark Castle, 
 upon Yarrow, and their bodies hastily interred at a place, called, 
 from that circumstance, Slain-men's-lee. The ground being, 
 about twenty years since, opened for the foundation of a school- 
 house, the bones and skulls, which were dug up in great 
 quantities, plainly showed the truth of the country tradition. 
 Many cavaliers, both officers and others, men of birth and 
 character, the companions of Montrose's many triumphs, fell in- 
 to the hands of the victors, and were, as we shall afterwards 
 see, put to an ignominious death. The prisoners, both of high 
 and low degree, would have been more numerous but for the 
 neighbourhood of the Harehead-wood, into which the fugitives 
 escaped. Such were the immediate consequences of this battle ; 
 concerning which the country people often quote the following 
 lines : 
 
 " At Philiphaugh the fray began ; 
 
 At Harehead-wood it euded. 
 Tho Scots out owro the Grahams they ran, 
 Sae merrily they bonded. "* 
 
 Montrose, after this disastrous action, retreated again into 
 
 1 For more particulars regarding the battle of Philiphaugh, see this 
 ballad, with Introduction and Notes, in the Border Minstrelsy, vol. ii. pp. 
 166-182.
 
 486 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLIV 
 
 the Highlands, where he once more assembled an army of 
 mountaineers. But his motions ceased to be of the consequence 
 which they had acquired before he had experienced defeat. 
 General Middleton, a man of military talents, but a soldier of 
 fortune, was despatched against him by the Convention of Estates, 
 which was eager to recover the same power in the Highlands 
 which David Lesley's victory had re-established throughout the 
 Lowlands. 
 
 While Alontrose was thus engaged in an obscure mountain 
 warfare, the Bong having already surrendered himself to the 
 Scottish auxiliaries, in total despair of the ultimate success, 
 and anxious for the safety of his adventurous general, sent 
 orders to him to dissolve his army, and to provide for his 
 personal security by leaving the kingdom. Montrose would 
 not obey the first order, concluding it had been extorted from 
 the monarch. To a second, and more peremptory in- 
 Sd i64<5 >t junction, he yielded obedience, and disbanding his 
 army, embarked in a brig bound for Bergen in Nor- 
 way, with a few adherents, who were too obnoxious to the 
 Covenanters to permit of their remaining in Scotland. Lest 
 their little vessel should be searched by an English ship of war, 
 Montrose wore the disguise of a domestic, and passed for 
 the servant of his chaplain and biographer, Dr. George Wishart. 
 You may remember that he wore a similar disguise on entering 
 Scotland, in order to commence his undertaking. 
 
 This and the preceding chapter give an account of the brief, 
 but brilliant period of Montrose's success. A future one will 
 contain the melancholy conclusion of his exertions and of his 
 life. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 The Presbyterian Clergy procure Hie Execution of many of the Prisoners 
 taken at Philiphaugh Cromwell's Successes King Charles's Sur- 
 render to the Scottish Army Their Surrender of him to the English 
 Parliament 
 
 16451647 
 
 I MUST now tell you the fate of the unfortunate cavaliers who 
 had been made prisoners at Philiphaugh. The barbarous treat- 
 ment of the common soldiers you are already acquainted with.
 
 1645 PRESBYTERIAN CLERGY 487 
 
 Argyle, the leader of the Convention of Estates, had to 
 resent the devastation of his country, and the destruction of 
 his castles ; and his desire of vengeance was so common to the 
 age, that it would have been accounted neglect of his duty 
 to his slain kinsmen and plundered clan, if he had let slip 
 the favourable opportunity of exacting blood for blood. Other 
 noblemen of the Convention had similar motives ; and, besides, 
 they had all been greatly alarmed at Montrose's success ; and 
 nothing makes men more pitiless than the recollection of recent 
 fears. It ought partly to have assuaged these vindictive feelings, 
 that Montrose's ravages, although they were sufficiently wasting, 
 were less encouraged by the officers than arising from the un- 
 controllable license of an unpaid soldiery. The prisoners had 
 always been treated with honour and humanity, and frequently 
 dismissed on parole. So that, if the fate of Montrose's com- 
 panions had depended on the Convention alone, it is possible, 
 that almost all might have been set at liberty upon moderate 
 conditions. But unfortunately the Presbyterian clergy thought 
 proper to interfere strenuously between the prisoners and the 
 mercy which they might otherwise have experienced. 
 
 And here it must be owned, that the Presbyterian ministers 
 of that period were in some respects a different kind of men 
 from their predecessors, in the reign of James VI. Malice 
 cannot, indeed, accuse them of abusing the power which they 
 had acquired since their success in 1640, for the purpose of 
 increasing either their own individual revenues, or those of the 
 Church ; nor had the system of strict morality, by which they 
 were distinguished, been in any degree slackened. They re- 
 mained in triumph, as they had been in suffering, honourably 
 poor and rigidly moral But yet though inaccessible to the 
 temptations of avarice or worldly pleasure, the Presbyterian 
 clergy of this period cannot be said to have been superior to 
 ambition and the desire of power ; and as they were naturally 
 apt to think that the advancement of religion was best secured 
 by the influence of the Church to which they belonged, they 
 were disposed to extend that influence by the strictest exertion 
 of domestic discipline. Inquiry into the conduct of individuals 
 was carried on by the Church-courts with indecent eagerness ; 
 and faults or follies, much fitter for private censure and admoni- 
 tion, were brought forward in the face of the public congregation. 
 The hearers were charged every Sabbath-day, that each individual
 
 488 TALKS OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLIV 
 
 should communicate to the Kirk Session (a court composed oi 
 the clergyman and certain selected laymen of the parish) what- 
 ever matter of scandal or offence against religion and morality 
 should come to their ears ; and thus an inquisitorial power was 
 exercised by one-half of the parish over the other. This was 
 well meant, but had bad consequences. Every idle story being 
 made the subject of anxious investigation, the private happiness 
 of families was disturbed, and discord and suspicion were sown 
 where mutual confidence is most necessary. 
 
 This love of exercising authority in families was naturally 
 connected with a desire to maintain that high influence in the 
 state which the Presbyterian church had acquired since the 
 downfall of Prelacy. The Scottish clergy had of late become 
 used to consider their peculiar form of church government, 
 which unquestionably has many excellences, as something almost 
 essential as religion itself; and it was but one step farther, to 
 censure every one who manifested a design to destroy the system, 
 or limit the power, of the Presbyterian discipline, as an enemy 
 to religion of every kind, nay, even to the Deity himself. Such 
 opinions were particularly strong amongst those of the clergy 
 who attended the armies in the field, seconded them by encourage- 
 ment from the pulpits, or aided them by actually assuming arms 
 themselves. The ardour of such men grew naturally more 
 enthusiastic in proportion to the opposition they met with, and 
 the dangers they encountered. The sights and sentiments 
 which attend civil conflict, are of a kind to reconcile the 
 human heart, however generous and humane by nature, to 
 severe language and cruel actions. Accordingly, we cannot be 
 surprised to find that some of the clergy forgot that a malignant, 
 for so they called a Royalist, was still a countryman and fellow 
 Christian, born under the same government, speaking the same 
 language, and hoping to be saved by the power of the same creed, 
 with themselves ; or that they directed against such Cavaliers 
 and Episcopalians those texts of Scripture, in which the Jews 
 were, by especial commission, commanded to extirpate the heathen 
 inhabitants of the Promised Land. 
 
 One of these preachers enlarged on such a topic after Lesley's 
 victory, and chose his text from the 15th chapter of 1st Samuel, 
 where the prophet rebukes Saul for sparing the King of the 
 Amalekites, and for having saved some part of the flocks and 
 herds of that people, which Heaven had devoted to utter
 
 645 RELIGIOUS PERSECUTIONS 489 
 
 destruction, " What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep 
 in mine ears 1 " In his sermon, he said that Heaven demanded 
 the blood of the prisoners taken at Philiphaugh, as devoted by 
 the Divine command to destruction ; nor could the sins of the 
 people be otherwise atoned for, or the wrath of Heaven averted 
 from the land. It is probable, that the preacher was himself 
 satisfied with the doctrine which he promulgated; for it is 
 wonderful how people's judgment is blinded by their passions, 
 and how apt we are to find plausible and even satisfactory 
 reasons, for doing what our interest, or that of the party we 
 have embraced, strongly recommends. 
 
 The Parliament, consisting entirely of Covenanters, instigated 
 by the importunity of the clergy, condemned eight of the most 
 distinguished cavaliers to execution. Four were appointed to 
 suffer at St. Andrews, that their blood might be an atonement, 
 as the phrase went, for the number of men (said to exceed five 
 thousand) whom the county of Fife had lost during Montrose's 
 wars. Lord Ogilvy was the first of these; but that young 
 nobleman. escaped from prison and death in his sister's clothes. 
 Colonel Nathaniel Gordon, one of the bravest men and best 
 soldiers in Europe, and six other cavaliers of the first distinction, 
 were actually executed. 
 
 We may particularly distinguish the fate of Sir Robert Spot- 
 tiswood, who, when the wars broke out, was Secretary Lord 
 President of the Court of Session, and accounted a judge of 
 great talent and learning. He had never borne arms ; but the 
 crime of having brought to Montrose his commission as Captain- 
 General of Scotland, and of having accepted the office of 
 secretary, which the Parliament had formerly conferred on 
 Lanark, was thought quite worthy of death, without any further 
 act of treason against the Estates. When on the scaffold, he 
 vindicated his conduct with the dignity of a judge, and the 
 talents of a lawyer. He was rudely enjoined to silence by the 
 Provost of St. Andrews, who had formerly been a servant of 
 his father's, when prelate of that city. The victim submitted 
 to this indignity with calmness, and betook himself to his private 
 devotions. He was even in this task interrupted by the Pres- 
 byterian minister in attendance, who demanded of him whether 
 he desired the benefit of his prayers, and those of the assembled 
 people. Sir Robert replied, that lie earnestly demanded the 
 prayers of the people, but rejected those of the preacher ; for
 
 490 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLIV 
 
 that, in his opinion, God had expressed his displeasure against 
 Scotland, by sending a lying spirit into the mouth of the prophets, 
 a far greater curse, he said, than those of sword, fire, and 
 pestilence. An old servant of his family took care of Spottis- 
 wood's body, and buried it privately. It is said that this faith- 
 ful domestic, passing through the market-place a day or two after- 
 wards, and seeing the scaffold on which his master had suffered 
 still unremoved, and stained with his blood, was so greatly 
 affected, that he sank down in a swoon, and died as they were 
 lifting him over his own threshold. Such are the terrible scenes 
 which civil discord gives occasion to ; and, my dear child, you 
 will judge very wrong if you suppose them peculiar to one side or 
 other of the contending parties in the present case. You will 
 learn hereafter, that the same disposition to abuse power, which 
 is common, I fear, to all who possess it in an unlimited degree, 
 was exercised with cruel retaliation by the Episcopalian party 
 over the Presbyterians, when their hour of authority returned. 
 
 We must now turn our thoughts to England, the stage on 
 which the most important scenes were acting, to which these 
 in Scotland can only be termed very subordinate. And here I 
 may remark, that, greatly to the honour of the English nation, 
 owing, perhaps, to the natural generosity and good-humour 
 of the people, or to the superior influence of civilisation, the 
 civil war in that country, though contested with the utmost 
 fury in the open field, was not marked by anything approaching 
 to the violent atrocities of the Irish, or the fierce and ruthless 
 devastation exercised by the Scottish combatants. The days of 
 deadly feud had been long past, if the English ever followed 
 that savage custom, and the spirit of malice and hatred which 
 it fostered had no existence in that country. The English 
 parties contended manfully in battle, but, unless in the storming 
 of towns, when all the evil passions are afloat, they seem 
 seldom to have been guilty of cruelty or wasteful ravage. They 
 combated like men who have quarrelled on some social point, 
 but, having had no ill-will against each other before, are re- 
 solved to fight it out fairly, without bearing malice. On the 
 contrary, the cause of Prelacy or Presbytery, King or Parliament, 
 was often what was least in the thoughts of the Scottish barons, 
 who made such phrases indeed the pretext for the war, but in 
 fact looked forward to indulging, at the expense of some rival 
 family, the treasured vengeance of a hundred years.
 
 1645-7 RELIGIOUS PERSECUTIONS 491 
 
 But though the English spirit did not introduce into their 
 civil war the savage aspect of the Scottish feuds, they were not 
 free from the religious dissensions, which formed another curse 
 of the age. I have already said, that the party which opposed 
 itself to the King and the Church of England was, with the 
 followers of the Parliament, and the Parliament itself, divided 
 into two factions, that of the Presbyterians and that of the 
 Independents. I have also generally mentioned the points on 
 which these two parties differed. I must now notice them 
 more particularly. 
 
 The Presbyterian establishment, as I have often stated, 
 differs from that of the Church of England, in the same manner 
 as a republic, all the members of which are on a footing of 
 equality, differs from a monarchical constitution. In the Kirk 
 of Scotland all the ministers are on an equality ; in the Church 
 of England there is a gradation of ranks, ascending from the 
 lowest order of clergymen to the rank of bishop. But each 
 system is alike founded upon the institution of a body of men, 
 qualified by studies of a peculiar nature to become preachers of 
 the Gospel, and obliged to show they are so qualified, by under- 
 going trials and examinations of their learning and capacity, 
 before they can take holy orders, that is to say, become clergy- 
 men. Both Churches also agree in secluding from ordinary 
 professions and avocations the persons engaged in the ministry, 
 and in considering them as a class of men set apart for teaching 
 religious duties and solemnising religious rites. It is also the 
 rule alike of Episcopalians and Presbyterians that the National 
 Church, as existing in its courts and judicatories, has power to 
 censure, suspend from their functions, and depose from their 
 clerical character and clerical charge such of its members as, 
 either by immoral and wicked conduct, or by preaching and 
 teaching doctrines inconsistent with the public creed, shall 
 render themselves unfit to execute the trust reposed in them. 
 And further, both these national churches maintain, that such 
 courts and judicatories have power over their lay hearers, and 
 those who live in communion with them, to rebuke transgressors 
 of every kind, and to admonish them to repentance ; and if such 
 admonitions are neglected, to expel them from the congregation 
 by the sentence of excommunication. 
 
 Thus far most Christian churches agree ; and thus far the 
 claims and rights of a national church are highly favourable to
 
 492 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLIV 
 
 the existence of a regular government ; since reason, as well as 
 the general usage of the religious world, sanctions the establish- 
 ment of the clergy as a body of men separated from the general 
 class of society, that they may set an example of regularity of 
 life by the purity of their morals. Thus set apart from the 
 rest of the community, they are supported at the expense of 
 the state, in order that the reverence due to them may not be 
 lessened by their being compelled, for the sake of subsistence, 
 to mingle in the ordinary business of life, and share the cares 
 and solicitudes incidental to those who must labour for their 
 daily bread. 
 
 How far the civil magistrate can be wisely entrusted with 
 the power of enforcing spiritual censures, or seconding the 
 efforts of the Church to obtain general conformity, by inflicting 
 the penalties of fines, imprisonment, bodily punishment, and 
 death itself, upon those who differ in doctrinal points from the 
 established religion, is a very different question. It is no doubt 
 true, that wild sects have sometimes started up, whose tenets 
 have involved direct danger to the state. But such offenders 
 ought to be punished, not as offenders against the Church, but 
 as transgressors against the laws of the kingdom. While their 
 opinions remain merely speculative, the persons entertaining 
 them may deserve expulsion from the national Church, with 
 which indeed they could consistently desire no communion ; 
 but while they do not carry these erroneous tenets into execu- 
 tion, by any treasonable act, it does not appear the province of 
 the civil magistrate to punish them for opinions only. And if 
 the zeal of such sectaries should drive them into action, they 
 deserve punishment, not for holding unchristian doctrines, but 
 for transgressing the civil laws of the realm. This distinction 
 was little understood in the days we write of, and neither the 
 English nor the Scottish Church can be vindicated from the 
 charge of attempting to force men's consciences, by criminal 
 persecutions for acts of non-conformity, though not accompanied 
 by any civil trespass. 
 
 Experience and increasing knowledge have taught the present 
 generation that such severities have always increased the evil 
 they were intended to cure ; and that mild admonition, patient 
 instruction, and a good example, may gain many a convert to 
 the established churches, whom persecution and violence would 
 have only confirmed in his peculiar opinions. You have read
 
 1645-7 INDEPENDENTS 493 
 
 the fable of the traveller, who wrapped his cloak the faster 
 about him when the storm blew loud, but threw it aside in the 
 serene beams of the sunshine. It applies to the subject I have 
 been speaking of, as much as to the advantages of gentleness 
 and mild persuasion in social life. 
 
 I return to the distinction between the Independents and 
 Presbyterians during the civil wars of the reign of Charles I. 
 The latter, as you already know, stood strongly out for a 
 national church and an established clergy, with full powers to 
 bind and loose, and maintained by the support of the civil 
 government. Such a church had been fully established in 
 Scotland, and it was the ardent wish of its professors that the 
 English should adopt the same system. Indeed, it was in the 
 hope of attaining this grand object that the consent of the 
 Scottish Convention of Estates was given to sending an auxiliary 
 army to assist the Parliament of England ; and they had never 
 suffered themselves to doubt that the adoption of the Presby- 
 terian discipline in that country was secured by the terms of 
 the Solemn League and Covenant. But the Independents 
 had, from the beginning, entertained the secret resolution of 
 opposing the establishment of a national church of any kind in 
 England. 
 
 The opinions of these sectaries stood thus on matters of church 
 government. Every one, they said, had a right to read the 
 Scriptures, and draw such conclusions respecting the doctrines 
 which are there inculcated as his own private judgment should 
 hold most conformable to them. They went farther, and 
 argued, that every man who felt himself called upon to com- 
 municate to others the conclusions which he had derived from 
 reading the Bible, and meditating on its contents, had a right, 
 and a call from Heaven, to preach and teach the peculiar belief 
 which he had thus adopted. It was no matter how obscure 
 had been the individual's condition in life, or how limited the 
 course of his education ; he was equally entitled, in their 
 opinion, to act as a minister, as if lie had studied with success 
 for twenty years, and taken orders from a bishop, or from a 
 presbytsry. If such a gifted preacher could prevail on six 
 persons to admit his doctrines, these six persons, according to 
 the doctrine of the Independents, made a Christian congrega- 
 tion ; and, as far as religious instruction was concerned, the 
 orator became their spiritual head and teacher. Be his hearers
 
 494 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLIV 
 
 many or few, they were thenceforward his sheep, and he their 
 spiritual shepherd. But to all the rest of the world, except his 
 own congregation, the Independents held, that every preacher 
 remained an ordinary layman, having no claim on the state for 
 revenue or subsistence. If he could persuade his congregation 
 to contribute to his support, he was the more fortunate. If 
 not, he lived by his ordinary calling of a baker, a tailor, or a 
 shoemaker, and consoled himself that he resembled St. Paul, 
 who wrought with his hands for his livelihood. 
 
 Of the congregations or sects thus formed, there were in 
 England hundreds, perhaps thousands, most of them disagreeing 
 from each other in doctrine, and only united by the common 
 opinion peculiar to them all as Independents, that each private 
 Christian had a right to teach or to listen to whatever doctrines 
 he thought fit ; that there ought to exist no church courts of 
 any kind ; that the character of a preacher was only to be re- 
 cognised by those disciples who chose to be taught by him ; 
 and that, in any more extensive point of view, there ought not 
 to exist any body of priests or clergymen by profession, any 
 church government, or church judicatories, or any other mode 
 of enforcing religious doctrine, save by teaching it from the 
 pulpit, and admonishing the sinner, or, if necessary, expelling 
 him from the congregation. This last, indeed, could be no 
 great infliction, where there were so many churches ready to 
 receive him, or where, if he pleased, he might set up a church 
 for himself. 
 
 The Sectaries, as the Independents were termed, entertained, 
 as may be supposed, very wild doctrines. Men of an enthu- 
 siastic spirit, and sometimes a crazed imagination, as opinion- 
 ative as they were ignorant, and many of them as ignorant as 
 the lowest vulgar, broached an endless variety of heresies, 
 some of them scandalous, some even blasphemous ; others, ex- 
 cept on account of the serious subject they referred to, extremely 
 ludicrous. 
 
 But the preachers and hearers of these strange doctrines 
 were not confined to the vulgar and ignorant. Too much 
 learning made some men mad. Sir Henry Vane, one of the 
 subtlest politicians in England, and Milton, one of the greatest 
 poets ever born, caught the spirit of the times, and became 
 Independents. But above all, Oliver Cromwell, destined to rise 
 to the supreme power in England, was of that form of religion.
 
 ,645-7 INDEPENDENTS 495 
 
 This remarkable person was of honourable descent, but, in- 
 heriting a small fortune, had practised at one time the occupa- 
 tion of a brewer. After a course of gaiety and profligacy during 
 early youth, he caught a strong taint of the enthusiasm of the 
 times, and made himself conspicuous by his aversion to Prelacy, 
 and his zealous opposition to the arbitrary measures of the 
 King. He became a member of Parliament, but, as he spoke 
 indifferently, made no figure in that body, being only promi- 
 nent for his obstinacy and uncompromising zeal. When, how- 
 ever, the Parliament raised their army, the military talents of 
 Cromwell made him early distinguished. It was remarked 
 that he was uniformly successful in every contest in which he 
 was personally engaged, and that he was the first officer who 
 could train and bring to the field a body of cavalry capable of 
 meeting the shock of the Cavaliers, whose high birth, lofty 
 courage, and chivalrous bravery, made them formidable oppo- 
 nents of the Parliamentary forces. His regiment of Ironsides, 
 as they were called, from the cuirasses which the men wore, 
 were carefully exercised, and accustomed to strict military dis- 
 cipline, while their courage was exalted by the enthusiasm 
 which their commander contrived to inspira He preached to 
 them himself, prayed for them and with them, and attended 
 with an air of edification to any who chose to preach or pray 
 in return. The attention of these military fanatics was so 
 fixed upon the mysteries of the next world, that death was no 
 terror to them ; and the fiery valour of the Cavaliers was en- 
 countered and repelled by men who fought for their own ideas 
 of religion as determinedly as their enemies did for honour and 
 loyalty. The spirit of the Independent sectaries spread gene- 
 rally through the army, and the Parliament possessed no troops 
 so excellent as those who followed these doctrines. 
 
 The great difference betwixt the Presbyterians and Inde- 
 pendents consisted, as I have told you, in the desire of the 
 former to establish their form of religion and church govern- 
 ment as the national church establishment of England, and of 
 course to compel a general acquiescence in their articles of faith. 
 For this, a convention of the most learned and able divines was 
 assembled at Westminster, who settled the religious creed of 
 the intended church according to the utmost rigour of the 
 Presbyterian creed. This assumption of exclusive power over 
 the conscience alarmed the Independents, and in the dispute
 
 49G TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLIV 
 
 which ensued, the consciousness of their own interest with the 
 army gave the sectaries new courage and new pretensions. 
 
 At first the Independents had been contented to let the 
 Presbyterians of England, a numerous and wealthy body, take 
 the lead in public measures. But as their own numbers in- 
 creased, and their leaders became formidable from their interest 
 with the army, they resisted the intention which the Presby- 
 terians showed of establishing their own faith in England as 
 well as Scotland. Sir Henry Vane persuaded them to tempo- 
 rise a little longer, since to oppose Presbytery was to disgust 
 the Scottish auxiliaries, enamoured as they were of their 
 national system. " We cannot yet dispense with the assistance 
 of the Scots," he said ; " the sons of Zeruiah are still too many 
 for us." But the progress of the war, while it totally ruined 
 the King's party, gradually diminished the strength of the 
 Presbyterians, and increased that of the Independents. The 
 Earls of Essex and Manchester, generals chosen from the fonner 
 party, had sustained many losses, which were attributed to in- 
 capacity ; and they were accused of having let slip advantages, 
 from which it was supposed they had no wish to drive the 
 King to extremity. People began to murmur against the 
 various high offices in the army and state being exclusively 
 occupied by members of Parliament, chiefly Presbyterians ; and 
 the protracted length of the civil hostilities was imputed to the 
 desire of such persons to hold in their possession as long as 
 possible the authority which the war pkced in their hands. 
 
 The Parliament felt that their popularity was in danger of 
 being lost, and looked about for means of recovering it. While 
 their minds were thus troubled, Cromwell suggested a very 
 artful proposal. To recover the confidence of the uation, the 
 members of Parliament, he said, ought to resign all situations 
 of trust or power which they possessed, and confine themselves 
 exclusively to the discharge of their legislative duty. The 
 Parliament fell into the snare. They enacted what was called 
 the self-denying ordinance ; by which, in order to show their 
 disinterested patriotism, the members laid down all their 
 offices, civil and military, and rendered themselves incapable 
 of resuming them. This act of self-deprivation proved in the 
 event a death-blow to the power of the Presbyterians; the 
 places which were thus simply resigned being instantly filled 
 tip by the ablest men in the Independent party.
 
 1645-7 SURRENDER Ol<' CHARLES I. 497 
 
 Two members of Parliament, however, were allowed to re- 
 tain command. The one was Sir Thomas Fairfax, a Presby- 
 terian, whose military talents had been highly distinguished 
 during the war, but who was much under the guidance of 
 Oliver Cromwell. The other was Cromwell himself, who had 
 the title of lieutenant-general only, but in fact enjoyed, 
 through his influence over the soldiers, and even over Fairfax 
 himself, all the advantage of supreme command. 
 
 The success of Cromwell in this grand measure led to re- 
 modelling the army after his own plan, in which he took care 
 their numbers should be recruited, their discipline improved, 
 and, above all, their ranks filled up with Independents. The 
 influence of these changes was soon felt in the progress of the 
 war. The troops of the King sustained various checks, and 
 at length a total defeat in the battle of Naseby, from the effect 
 of which the affairs of Charles could never recover. Loss 
 after loss succeeded; the strong places which the Royalists 
 possessed were taken one after another ; and the King's cause 
 was totally ruined. The successes of Montrose had excited a 
 gleam of hope, which disappeared after his defeat at Philip- 
 haugh. Finally, King Charles was shut up in the city of 
 Oxford, which had adhered to his cause with the most devoted 
 loyalty ; the last army which he had in the field was destroyed ; 
 and he had no alternative save to remain in Oxford till he 
 should be taken prisoner, to surrender himself to his enemies, 
 or to escape abroad. 
 
 In circumstances so desperate, it was difficult to make a 
 choice. A frank surrender to the Parliament, or an escape 
 abroad, would have perhaps been the most advisable conduct. 
 But the Parliament and their own Independent army were now 
 on the brink of quarrelling. The establishment of the Pres- 
 byterian Church was resolved upon, though only for a time and 
 in a limited form, and both parties were alike dissatisfied ; the 
 zealous Presbyterians, because it gave the church courts too 
 little power ; the Independents, because it invested them with 
 any control, however slight, over persons of a different com- 
 munion. Amidst the disputes of his opponents, the King 
 hoped to find his way back to the throne. 
 
 For this purpose, and to place himself in a situation, as he 
 hoped, from whence to negotiate with safety, Charles deter- 
 mined to surrender himself to that Scottish army which had 
 
 32
 
 498 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLIV 
 
 been sent into England, under the Earl of Leven, as auxiliaries 
 of the English Parliament. The King concluded that he 
 might expect personal protection, if not assistance, from an 
 army composed of his own countrymen. Besides, the Scottish 
 army had lately been on indifferent terms with the English. 
 The Independent troops who now equalled, or even excelled 
 them in discipline, and were actuated by an enthusiasm which 
 the Scots did not possess, looked with an evil eye on an army 
 composed of foreigners and Presbyterians. The English in 
 general, as soon as their assistance was no longer necessary, 
 began to regard their Scottish brethren as an incumbrance; 
 and the Parliament, while they supplied the Independent forces 
 liberally with money and provisions, neglected the Scots in 
 both these essentials, whose honour and interest were affected 
 in proportion. A perfect acquaintance with the discontent of 
 the Scottish army induced Charles to throw himself upon 
 their protection in his misfortunes. 
 
 He left Oxford in disguise, on 27th April 1646, having 
 only two attendants. Nine days after his departure, he sur- 
 prised the old Earl of Leven and the Scottish camp, who were 
 then forming the siege of Newark, by delivering himself into 
 their hands. The Scots received the unfortunate monarch 
 with great outward respect, but guarded his person with 
 vigilance. They immediately broke up the siege, and marched 
 with great speed to the north, carrying the person of the King 
 along with them, and observing the strictest discipline on 
 their retreat. When their army arrived at Newcastle, a strong 
 town which they themselves had taken, and where they had a 
 garrison, they halted to await the progress of negotiations at 
 this singular crisis. 
 
 Upon surrendering himself to the Scottish army, King 
 Charles had despatched a message to the Parliament, express- 
 ing his having done so, desiring that they would send him 
 such articles of pacification as they should agree upon, and 
 offering to surrender Oxford, Newark, and whatever other gar- 
 risons or strong places he might still possess, and order the 
 troops he had on foot to lay down their arms. The places 
 were surrendered accordingly, honourable terms being allowed ; 
 and the army of Montrose in the Highlands, and such other 
 forces as the Royalists still maintained throughout England, were 
 disbanded, as I have already told you, by the King's command.
 
 1645-7 SURRENDER OF CHARLES I. 499 
 
 The Parliament showed great moderation, and the civil war 
 seemed to be ended. The articles of pacification which they 
 offered were not more rigorous than the desperate condition of 
 the King must have taught him to expect. But questions of 
 religion interfered to prevent the conclusion of the treaty. 
 
 In proportion as the great majority of the Parliament were 
 attached to the Presbyterian forms, Charles was devoted to the 
 system of Episcopacy. He deemed himself bound by his corona- 
 tion oath to support the Church of England, and he would not 
 purchase his own restoration to the throne by consenting to its 
 being set aside. Here, therefore, the negotiation betwixt the 
 King and his Parliament was broken off; but another was 
 opened between the English Parliament and the Scottish army, 
 concerning the disposal of the King's person. 
 
 If Charles could have brought his mind to consent to the 
 acceptance of the Solemn League and Covenant, it is probable 
 that he would have gained all Scotland to his side. This, how- 
 ever, would have been granting to the Scots what he had 
 refused to the Parliament ; for the support of Presbytery was 
 the essential object of the Scottish invasion. On the other 
 hand, it could hardly be expected that the Scottish Convention 
 of Estates should resign the very point on which it had begun 
 and continued the war. The Church of Scotland sent forth a 
 solemn warning, that all engagement with the King was un- 
 lawful. The question, therefore, was, what should be done 
 with the person of Charles. 
 
 The generous course would have been, to have suffered the 
 King to leave the Scottish army as freely as he came there. In 
 that case he might have embarked at Tyiiemouth, and found 
 refuge in foreign countries. And even if the Scots had deter- 
 mined that the exigencies of the times, and the necessity of 
 preserving the peace betwixt England and Scotland, together 
 with their engagements with the Parliament of England, de- 
 manded that they should surrender the person of their King 
 to that body, the honour of Scotland was intimately concerned 
 in so conducting the transaction that there should be no room 
 for alleging that any selfish advantage was stipulated by the 
 Scots as a consequence of giving him up. I am almost ashamed 
 to write that this honourable consideration had no weight 
 
 The Scottish army had a long arrear of pay due to them 
 from the English Parliament, which the latter had refused, or
 
 500 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLV 
 
 at least delayed, to make forthcoming. A treaty for the settle- 
 ment of these arrears had been set on foot ; and it had been 
 agreed that the Scottish forces should retreat into their own 
 country, upon payment of two hundred thousand pounds, which 
 was one-half of the debt finally admitted. Now, it is true that 
 these two treaties, concerning the delivery of the filing's person 
 to England, and the payment by Parliament of their pecuni- 
 ary arrears to Scotland, were kept separate, for the sake of 
 decency; but it is certain, that they not only coincided in 
 point of time, but bore upon and influenced each other. No 
 man of candour will pretend to believe that the Parliament of 
 England would ever have paid this considerable sum, unless to 
 facilitate their obtaining possession of the King's person ; and 
 this sordid and base transaction, though the work exclusively 
 of a mercenary army, stamped the whole nation of Scotland 
 with infamy. In foreign countries they were upbraided with 
 the shame of having made their unfortunate and confiding 
 sovereign a hostage, whose liberty or surrender was to depend 
 on their obtaining payment of a paltry sum of arrears ; and the 
 English nation reproached them with their greed and treachery, 
 in the popular rhyme 
 
 " Traitor Scot 
 Sold his King for a groat." 
 
 The Scottish army surrendered the person of Charles to the 
 
 Commissioners for the English Parliament, on receiving security 
 
 for their arrears of pay, and immediately evacuated 
 
 ^iM? 11 ' Newcastle and marched for their own country. I 
 
 am sorry to conclude the chapter with this mercenary 
 
 and dishonourable transaction ; but the limits of the work 
 
 require me to bring it thus to a close. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV 
 
 The King surrendered to the English Army Treaty with t/ie Scotch 
 The Trial and Execution of Charles I. 
 
 16471649 
 
 OUR last chapter concluded with the dishonourable transaction 
 by which the Scottish army surrendered Charles L into the
 
 1647 CHARLES A PRISONER 501 
 
 hands of the Parliament of England, on receiving security for a 
 sum of arrears due to them by that body. 
 
 The Commissioners of Parliament, thus possessed of the 
 King's person, conducted him as a state prisoner to Holmby 
 House, in Northamptonshire, which had been assigned as his 
 temporary residence ; but from which a power different from 
 theirs was soon about to withdraw him. 
 
 The Independents, as I have said, highly resented as a 
 tyranny over their consciences the establishment of Presbytery, 
 however temporary, or however mitigated, in the form of a 
 national church ; and were no less displeased that the army, 
 whose ranks were chiefly filled with these military saints, 
 as they called themselves, who were principally of the Inde- 
 pendent persuasion, was, in the event of peace, which seemed 
 close at hand, threatened either to be sent to Ireland or 
 disbanded. The discontent among the English soldiery became 
 general ; they saw that the use made of the victories, which 
 their valour had mainly contributed to gain, would be to 
 reduce and disarm them, and send out of the kingdom such 
 regiments as might be suffered to retain their arms and 
 military character. And besides the loss of pay, profession, 
 and importance, the sectaries had every reason to apprehend 
 the imposition of the Presbyterian yoke, as they termed the 
 discipline of that church. These mutinous dispositions were 
 secretly encouraged by Cromwell, Ireton, and Fleetwood, 
 officers of high rank and influence, to whom the Parliament 
 had entrusted the charge of pacifying them. At length the 
 army assumed the ominous appearance of a separate body in 
 the state, whose affairs were managed by a council of superior 
 officers, with assistance from a committee of persons, called 
 Agitators, being two privates chosen from each company. 
 These bold and unscrupulous men determined to gain possession 
 of the person of the King, and to withdraw him from the 
 power of the Parliament 
 
 In pursuance of this resolution, Joyce, originally a tailor, 
 now a cornet, and a furious agitator for the cause of the army, 
 on the 4th of June 1647, appeared suddenly at midnight 
 before Holmby House. The troops employed by the Commis- 
 sioners to guard the King's person, being infected, it may be 
 supposed, with the general feeling of the army, offered no 
 resistance. Joyce, with little ceremony, intruded himself,
 
 502 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP, xi.v 
 
 armed with his pistols, into the King's sleeping apartment, and 
 informed his Majesty that he must please to attend him. 
 "Where is your commission?" said the unfortunate King. 
 "Yonder it is," answered the rude soldier, pointing to his 
 troop of fifty horse, which, by the early dawning, was seen 
 drawn up in the courtyard of the place. "It is written in 
 legible characters," replied Charles; and without further re- 
 monstrance he prepared to attend the escort. 
 
 The King was conducted to Newmarket, and from thence to 
 the palace of Hampton Court ; and though in the hands of a 
 body which had no lawful authority or responsible character, he 
 was at first treated with more respect, and even kindness, than 
 he had experienced either from the Scottish army, or from the 
 English Commissioners. The officers distrusted, perhaps, the 
 security of their own power, for they offered a pacification 
 on easy terms. They asked an equal national representation, 
 freely chosen ; stipulated that the two Houses of Parliament 
 should enjoy the command of the militia for fourteen years; 
 and even agreed that the order of Bishops should be re-estab- 
 lished, but without any temporal power or coercive jurisdiction. 
 So far the terms were more moderate than, from such men and 
 in such a moment, the King could have expected. But on one 
 point the council of officers were rigidly determined; they 
 insisted that seven of the adherents of Charles, chosen from 
 those who had, with wisdom or with valour, best supported the 
 sinking cause of Royalty, should be declared incapable of pardon. 
 Charles was equally resolute in resisting this point; his con- 
 science had suffered too deeply on the occasion of Strafford's 
 execution, to which he had yielded in the beginning of these 
 troubles, to permit him ever to be tempted again to abandon a 
 friend. 
 
 In the meantime the Parliament was preparing to exert its 
 authority in opposing and checking the unconstitutional powei 
 assumed by the army ; and the city of London, chiefly com- 
 posed of Presbyterians, showed a general disposition to stand 
 by the Houses of Legislature. But when that formidable army 
 drew near to London, both Parliament and citizens became 
 intimidated ; and the former expelled from their seats the 
 leading Presbyterian members, and suffered the Independents 
 to dictate to the dispirited remainder what measures they 
 judged necessary. Prudence would, at this moment, have
 
 1647 CHARLES A PRISONER 503 
 
 strongly recommended to Charles an instant agreement with 
 the army. But the Presbyterians of England had not resigned 
 hopes; and the whole kingdom of Scotland, incensed at the 
 triumph of the sectaries, and the contumely offered to the 
 Solemn League and Covenant, which had been stigmatised, 
 in the House of Commons, as an almanac out of date, their 
 commissioners made, in private, liberal offers to restore the 
 King by force of arms. In listening to these proposals, Charles 
 flattered himself that he should be able to hold the balance 
 betwixt the Presbyterians and Independents ; but he mistook 
 the spirit of the latter party, from whom this private negotia- 
 tion did not long remain a secret, and who were highly incensed 
 by the discovery. 
 
 The Presbyterians had undertaken the war with professions 
 of profound respect towards the King's person and dignity. 
 They had always protested that they made war against the 
 evil counsellors of the King, but not against his person ; and 
 their ordinances, while they were directed against the Malig- 
 nants, as they termed the Koyalists, ran in the King's own 
 name, as well as in that of the two Houses of Parliament, by 
 whose sole authority they were sent forth. The Independents, 
 on the contrary, boldly declared themselves at war with the 
 Man Charles, as the abuser of the regal power and the 
 oppressor of the saints. Cromwell himself avouched such 
 doctrines in open Parliament. He said it was childish to talk 
 of there being no war with the King's person, when Charles 
 appeared in armour, and at the head of his troops in open 
 battle ; and that he himself was so far from feeling any scruple 
 oil the subject, that he would fire his pistol at the King as 
 readily as at any of his adherents, should he meet him in the 
 fight. 
 
 After the discovery of the King's treaty with the Scottish 
 Commissioners, Cromwell, admitting Charles's power of under- 
 standing and reasoning, denounced him as a man of the deepest 
 dissimulation, who had broken faith, by professing an entire 
 reliance on the wisdom of the Parliament, while, by a separate 
 negotiation with the Scottish Commissioners, he was endea- 
 vouring to rekindle the flames of civil war between the sister 
 kingdoms. After speaking to this purpose, Cromwell required, 
 and by the now irresistible interest of the Independents he 
 obtained, a declaration from the House, that the Parliament
 
 504 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLV 
 
 would receive no further applications from Charles, and make 
 no addresses to him in future. 
 
 The unfortunate King, while in the power of this uncom- 
 promising faction, by whom his authority seemed to be sus- 
 pended, if not abolished, ought to have been aware, that if he 
 was to succeed in any accommodation with them at all, it could 
 only be by accepting, without delay or hesitation, such terms 
 as they were disposed to allow him. If he could have succeeded 
 in gratifying their principal officers by promises of wealth, rank, 
 and distinction, which were liberally tendered to them, 1 it is 
 probable that their influence might have induced their followers 
 to acquiesce in his restoration, especially if it afforded the means 
 of disconcerting the plans of the Presbyterians. But Charles 
 ought, at the same time, to have reflected, that any appearance 
 of procrastination on his part must give rise to suspicions of 
 his sincerity on the part of the military leaders ; and that the 
 Independents, having once adopted an idea that he was trifling 
 with or deceiving them, had none of that sanctimonious respect 
 for his title, or person, that could prevent his experiencing the 
 utmost rigour. 
 
 The Independents and their military council, accordingly, 
 distrusting the sincerity of Charles, and feeling every day the 
 increase of their own power, began to think of establishing it 
 on an entirely different basis from that of monarchy. They 
 withdrew from the King the solemn marks of respect with 
 which he had been hitherto indulged, treated him with neglect 
 and incivility, deprived him of his chaplains, confined his person 
 more closely, doubled the guards upon him, and permitted 
 none to have access to him, but such as possessed their 
 confidence. 
 
 Alarmed at these ominous severities, Charles now resolved 
 
 to escape by flight, and left Hampton Court accordingly. Un- 
 
 iith Nov happily, either misled by his attendant or by his own 
 
 indiscretion, he took refuge in the Isle of Wight, 
 
 where the governor of Carisbrook Castle [Colonel Hammond] 
 
 was the friend of Cromwell, and a fierce Independent Here 
 
 the unfortunate monarch only fell into a captivity more solitary, 
 
 1 "To Cromwell be offered the garter, a peerage, and the command of 
 the army ; and to Tretou the lieutenancy of Ireland. Nor did he think 
 that they could reasonably, from their birth or former situation, entertain 
 more ambitious views." RUSSELL'S Modern Europe.
 
 1647-8 THE ENGAGEMENT . 505 
 
 more severe, and more comfortless, than any which he had 
 yet experienced. He himself from his window pointed out 
 to Sir Philip Warwick an old gray-headed domestic on the 
 street, who brought in wood to the fire, and observed to him, 
 that the conversation of that menial was the best that he had 
 been suffered to enjoy for months. There is even reason to 
 think his life was aimed at, and that the King was privately 
 encouraged to make an effort to escape from a window in the 
 castle, while a person was placed in readiness to shoot him in 
 the attempt. 
 
 The council of war renounced all further communication 
 with Charles ; the Parliament, now under the Independent 
 influence, sent down Commissioners to treat, but with preli- 
 minary conditions harder than any yet offered to him. Two 
 resources remained to him the services of the disbanded 
 loyalists, whom his faithful adherents might again summon to 
 arms but they were dispersed, disarmed, and heart-broken ; 
 or the assistance of the Scots but they were distant and dis- 
 united. Yet Charles resolved to try his fortunes on this 
 perilous cast, rather than treat with the Parliament, influenced 
 as it was by the army. 
 
 The presence of two Scottish Commissioners who had ac- 
 companied those of the Parliament to Carisbrook, enabled 
 Charles to execute a secret treaty with them, by which he 
 agreed to confirm the Solemn League and Covenant, establish 
 Presbytery, at least for a season, and concur in the extirpation 
 of the sectaries. These articles, if they had been granted 
 while Charles was at Newcastle, would have been sufficient to 
 have prevented the surrender of his person by the Scottish 
 army ; but it was the King's unfortunate lot, on this, as on all 
 former occasions, to delay his concessions until they came too 
 late, and were liable to be considered insincere. 
 
 When this treaty (which was called the Engagement, because 
 the Commissioners engaged to restore the King by force of 
 arms) was presented to the Scottish Parliament, it was ap- 
 proved by the more moderate part of the Presbyterians, who 
 were led by the Duke of Hamilton, together with his brother 
 the Earl of Lanark, the Lord Chancellor Loudon, and the 
 Earl of Lauderdale; this last being destined to make a re- 
 markable figure in the next reign. But the majority of the 
 Presbyterian clergy, supported by the more zealous among
 
 506 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLV 
 
 their hearers, declared that the concessions of the King were 
 totally insufficient to engage Scotland in a new war, as afford- 
 ing no adequate cause for a quarrel with England. This party 
 was headed by the Marquis of Argyle. 
 
 I may here mention respecting this nobleman, that after 
 Montrose's army was disbanded, he had taken severe vengeance 
 on the MacDonalds, and other clans who had assisted in the 
 desolation of Argyleshire. Having the aid of David Lesley, 
 with a body of regular troops, he reduced successively some 
 forts into which Alaster MacDonald (Colkitto) had thrown 
 garrisons, and uniformly put the prisoners to the sword. The 
 MacDougals were almost exterminated in one indiscriminate 
 slaughter, and the Lamouts were put to death in another act 
 of massacre. Sir James Turner, an officer who served under 
 Lesley, lays the blame of these inhumanities on a hard-hearted 
 clergyman called Neaves. David Lesley was disgusted at it, 
 and when, after some such sanguinary execution, he saw his 
 chaplain with his shoes stained with blood, he asked him re- 
 proachfully, "Have you enough of it now, Master John?" 
 
 These atrocities, by whomever committed, must have been 
 perpetrated in revenge of the sufferings of Argyle and his clan ; 
 and to these must be added the death of old Colkitto, the 
 father of Alaster MacDonald, likewise so called, who, being 
 taken in one of these Highland forts, was tried by a jury con- 
 vened by authority of George Campbell, the Sheriff Substitute 
 of Argyle, from whose sentence we are told very few escaped, 
 and was executed of course. 
 
 All these grounds of offence having been given to the 
 Royalists, in a corner of the country where revenge was con- 
 sidered as a duty and a virtue, it is not extraordinary that 
 Argyle should have objected most earnestly to the Engage- 
 ment, which was an enterprise in which the King's interest 
 was to be defended, with more slender precautions against the 
 influence of the Malignants, or pure Royalists, than seemed 
 consistent with the safety of those who had been most violent 
 against them. Many of the best officers of the late army de- 
 clined to serve with the new levies, until the Church of Scot- 
 land should approve the cause of quarrel. The Parliament, 
 however, moved by compassion for their native monarch, and 
 willing to obliterate the disgrace which attached to the surrender 
 of the King at Newcastle, appointed an army to be levied, to
 
 1648 WHIGAMORES' RAID 507 
 
 act in his behalf. The kingdom was thus thrown into the 
 utmost confusion between the various factions of the Engagers 
 and their opponents. The civil magistrates, obeying the com- 
 mands of the Parliament, ordered the subjects to assume arms 
 under pain of temporal punishment; while the clergy, from 
 the pulpit, denounced the vengeance of Heaven against those 
 who obeyed the summons. 
 
 The Engagers prevailed so far as to raise a tumultuary and 
 ill-disciplined army of about fifteen thousand men, which was 
 commanded by the Duke of Hamilton. This ill-fated noble- 
 man deserved the praise of being a moderate man during all 
 the previous struggles ; and, though loving his King, seems 
 uniformly to have endeavoured to reconcile his administration 
 with the rights and even the prejudices of his countrymen. 
 But he had little decision of character, and less military skill. 
 While the Scotch were preparing their succours slowly and with 
 hesitation, the English cavaliers, impatient at the danger and 
 captivity of the King, took arms. But their insurrections 
 were so ill connected with each other, that they were crushed 
 successively, save in two cases, where the insurgents made 
 themselves masters of Colchester and Pembroke, in which 
 towns they were instantly besieged. 
 
 Hamilton ought to have advanced with all speed to raise 
 the siege of these places ; but instead of this he loitered away 
 more than forty days in Lancashire, until Cromwell came upon 
 him near Warrington, where head and heart seem alike to have 
 failed the unfortunate Duke. Without even an attempt at 
 resistance, he abandoned his enterprise, and made a disorderly 
 retreat, leaving his artillery and baggage. Baillie, with the 
 infantry, being deserted by his general, surrendered to the 
 enemy at Uttoxeter ; and Hamilton himself, with the cavalry, 
 took the same deplorable course. None escaped save a resolute 
 body of men under the Earl of Callender, who broke through 
 the enemy, and forced their way back to their own country. 
 
 The news of this disaster flew to Scotland. The refractory 
 clergy took the merit of having prophesied the downfall of the 
 Engagers, and stirred up the more zealous Presbyterians to 
 take possession of the government. Argyle drew to arms in 
 the Highlands, whilst the western peasantry assembling, and 
 headed by their divines, repaired to Edinburgh. This insurrec- 
 tion was called the Whigamores' Raid, from the word whig,
 
 508 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLV 
 
 whig, that is, get on, get on, which is used by the western 
 peasants in driving their horses, a name destined to become 
 the distinction of a powerful party in British history. 
 
 The Earl of Lanark was at the head of some troops on the 
 side of the Engagement, but, afraid of provoking the English, 
 in whose hands his brother Hamilton was a prisoner, he made 
 no material opposition to the Whigamores. Argyle became 
 once more the head of the government. It was during this 
 revolution that Cromwell advanced to the Borders, when, 
 instead of finding any enemies to fight with, he was received 
 by the victorious Whigamores as a friend and brother. Their 
 horror at an army of sectaries had been entirely overpowered 
 by their far more violent repugnance to unite with Cavaliers 
 and Malignants in behalf of the King. Cromwell, on that 
 occasion, held much intimate correspondence with Argyle, which 
 made it generally believed that the Marquis, in their private 
 conferences, acquiesced in the violent measures which were to 
 be adopted by the successful general against the captive King, 
 whose fate was now decided upon. The unfortunate Marquis 
 always denied this, nor was the charge ever supported by any 
 tangible evidence. 
 
 During these military and political transactions, Charles 
 had been engaged in a new treaty with the English Parliament 
 which was conducted at Newport in the Isle of Wight It 
 was set on foot in consequence of Cromwell's absence with his 
 army, which restored the Parliament to some freedom of debate, 
 and the Presbyterian members to a portion of their influence. 
 If anything could have saved that unfortunate Prince, it 
 might have been by accomplishing an agreement with the 
 House of Commons, while Hamilton's army was yet entire, 
 and before the insurrections of the Royalists had been entirely 
 suppressed. But he delayed closing the treaty until the army 
 returned, flushed with victory over the English Cavaliers and 
 Scottish Engagers, and denouncing vengeance on the head of 
 the King, whom they accused of being the sole author of the 
 civil war, and liable to punishment as such. This became the 
 language of the whole party. The pulpits rang with the 
 exhortations of the military preachers, demanding that the 
 King should be given over, as a public enemy, to a public 
 trial. 
 
 It was in vain that Charles had at length, with lingering
 
 1648 PRIDE'S PURGE 509 
 
 reluctance, yielded every request which the Parliament could 
 demand of him. It was equally in vain that the Parliament 
 had publicly declared that the concessions made by the King 
 were sufficient to form the basis of a satisfactory peace. The 
 army, stirred up by their ambitious officers and fanatic 
 preachers, were resolved that Charles should be put to an open 
 and ignominious death ; and a sufficient force of soldiery was 
 stationed in and around London to make resistance impossible, 
 either on the part of the Presbyterians or the Royalists. 
 
 In order to secure a majority in the House of Commons, 
 Colonel Pride, a man who had been a brewer, drew up his 
 regiment at the doors of the House of Parliament, and in the 
 streets adjacent, and secured the persons of upwards of forty 
 members, who being supposed favourable to reconciliation 
 with the King, were arrested and thrown into prison ; above 
 one hundred more were next day excluded. This act of viol- 
 ence was called Pride's Purge. At the same time the House of 
 Lords was shut up. The remainder of the House of Commons, 
 who alone were permitted to sit and vote, were all of the 
 Independent party, and ready to do whatever should be re- 
 quired by the soldiers. This remnant of a Parliament, under 
 the influence of the swords of their own soldiers, proceeded to 
 nominate what was called a High Court of Justice for the trial 
 of King Charles, charged with treason, as they termed it, 
 against the people of England. The Court consisted of one 
 hundred and thirty-three persons, chosen from the army, the 
 Parliament, and from such of the citizens of London as were 
 well affected to the proposed change of government from a 
 kingdom to a commonwealth. Many of the judges so nominated 
 refused, notwithstanding, to act upon such a commission. 
 Meantime, the great body of the English people beheld these 
 strange preparations with grief and terror. The Scots, broken 
 by the defeat of Hamilton and the success of the Whigamores' 
 Raid, had no means of giving assistance. 
 
 Those who drove this procedure forward were of different 
 classes, urged by different motives. 
 
 The higher officers of the army, Cromwell, Ireton, and 
 others, seeing they could not retain their influence by conclud- 
 ing a treaty with Charles, had resolved to dethrone and put 
 him to death, in order to establish a military government in 
 their own persons. These men had a distinct aim, and they
 
 510 TALKS OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLV 
 
 in some degree attained it. There were others among the 
 Independent party, who thought they had offended the King 
 so far beyond forgiveness, that his deposition and death were 
 necessary for their own safety. The motives of these persons 
 are also within the grasp of common apprehension. 
 
 But there were also among the Independent members of 
 Parliament men of a nobler character. There were statesmen 
 who had bewildered themselves with meditating upon theoreti- 
 cal schemes, till they had fancied the possibility of erecting a 
 system of republican government on the foundation of the 
 ancient monarchy of England. Such men, imposed on by a 
 splendid dream of unattainable freedom, imagined that the 
 violence put upon the Parliament by the soldiery, and the 
 death of the King, when it should take place, were but neces- 
 sary steps to the establishment of this visionary fabric of 
 perfect liberty, like the pulling down of an old edifice to make 
 room for a new building. After this fanciful class of politicians, 
 came enthusiasts of another and coarser description, influenced 
 by the wild harangues of their crack-brained preachers, who 
 saw in Charles not only the head of the enemies with whom 
 they had been contending for four years with various fortune, 
 but also a wicked King of Amalekites, delivered up to them 
 to be hewn in pieces in the name of Heaven. Such were the 
 various motives which urged the actors in this extraordinary 
 scene. 
 
 The pretext by which they coloured these proceedings was, 
 that the King had levied war against his people, to extend over 
 them an unlawful authority. If this had been true in point 
 of fact, it was no ground of charge against Charles in point of 
 law ; for the constitution of England declares that the King 
 can do no wrong, that is, cannot be made responsible for any 
 wrong which he does. The vengeance of the laws, when such 
 wrong is committed, is most justly directed against those 
 wicked ministers by whom the culpable measure is contrived, 
 and the agents by whom it is executed. The constitution of 
 England wisely rests on the principle, that if the counsellors 
 and instruments of a prince's pleasure are kept under wholesome 
 terror of the laws, there is no risk of the monarch, in his own 
 unassisted person, transgressing the limits of his authority. 
 
 But in fact the King had not taken arms against the Parlia- 
 ment to gain any new and extraordinary extent of power. It
 
 1 649 TRIAL OF CHARLES 511 
 
 is no doubt true, that the Parliament, wheii summoned together, 
 had many just grievances to complain of; but these were not, 
 in general, innovations of Charles, but such exertions of power 
 as had been customary in the four last reigns, when the crown 
 of England had been freed from the restraint of the barons, 
 without being sufficiently subjected to the control of the House 
 of Commons, representing the people at large. They were, 
 however, very bad precedents ; and, since the King had shown 
 a desire to follow them, the Parliament were most justly called 
 upon to resist the repetition of old encroachments upon their 
 liberty. But before the war broke out, the King had relin- 
 quished in favour of the Commons all they had demanded. 
 The ultimate cause of quarrel was, which party should have 
 the command of the militia or public force of the kingdom. 
 This was a constitutional part of the King's prerogative ; for 
 the executive power cannot be said to exist unless united with 
 the power of the sword. Violence on each side heightened the 
 general want of confidence. The Parliament, as has been 
 before stated, garrisoned, and held out the town of Hull against 
 Charles ; and the King infringed the privileges of the Commons, 
 by coming with an armed train to arrest five of their members 
 during the sitting of Parliament. So that the war must be 
 justly imputed to a train of long-protracted quarrels, in which 
 neither party could be termed wholly right, and still less entirely 
 wrong, but which created so much jealousy on both sides as 
 could scarcely terminate otherwise than in civil war. 
 
 The High Court of Justice, nevertheless, was opened, and 
 the King was brought to the bar on 19th January 1649. 
 The soldiers, who crowded the avenues, were taught to cry out 
 for justice upon the royal prisoner. When a bystander, affected 
 by the contrast betwixt the King's present and former condi- 
 tion, could not refrain from saying aloud, "God save your 
 Majesty," he was struck and beaten by the guards around 
 him "A rude chastisement," said the King, "for so slight 
 an offence." Charles behaved throughout the whole of the 
 trying scene with the utmost dignity. He bore, without com- 
 plaining, the reproaches of murderer and tyrant, which were 
 showered on him by the riotous soldiery ; and when a ruffian 
 spit in his face, the captive monarch wiped it off with his hand- 
 kerchief, and only said, " Poor creatures ! for half a crown 
 they would do the same to their father."
 
 512 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLV 
 
 When the deed of accusation, stated to be in the name of 
 the people of England, was read, a voice from one of the gal- 
 leries exclaimed, "not the tenth part of them!" Again, as 
 the names of the judges were called over, when that of General 
 Fairfax occurred, the same voice replied, " He has more sense 
 than to be here." Upon the officer who commanded the 
 guard ordering the musketeers to fire into the gallery from 
 which the interruption came, the speaker was discovered to 
 be Lady Fairfax, wife of Sir Thomas, the general of the 
 forces, and a daughter of the noble house of Vere, who in 
 this manner declared her resentment at the extraordinary 
 scene. 
 
 The King, when placed at the bar, looked around on the 
 awful preparations for trial, on the bench, crowded with avowed 
 enemies, and displaying, what was still more painful, the faces 
 of one or two ungrateful friends, without losing his steady 
 composure. When the public accuser began to speak, he 
 touched him with his staff, and sternly admonished him to 
 forbear. He afterwards displayed both talent and boldness in 
 his own defence. He disowned the authority of the novel and 
 incompetent court before which he was placed ; reminded those 
 who sat as his judges that he was their lawful King, answer- 
 able indeed to God for the use of his power, but declared by 
 the constitution incapable of doing wrong. Even if the 
 authority of the people were sufficient to place him before the 
 bar, he denied that such authority had been obtained. The 
 act of violence, he justly stated, was the deed, not of the 
 English nation, but of a few daring men, who had violated, by 
 military force, the freedom of the House of Commons, and 
 altogether destroyed and abolished the House of Peers. He 
 declared that he spoke not for himself, but for the sake of the 
 laws and liberties of England. 
 
 Though repeatedly interrupted by Bradshaw, a lawyer, pre- 
 sident of the pretended High Court of Justice, Charles pro- 
 nounced his defence in a manly, yet temperate manner. Being 
 then three times called on to answer to the charge, he as often 
 declined the jurisdiction of the court. Sentence of death was 
 then pronounced, to be executed in front of the royal palace, 
 lately his own. 
 
 On the 30th January 1649 Charles I. was brought forth 
 through one of the windows in front of the banqueting house
 
 1 649 EXECUTION OF CHARLES 513 
 
 at Whitehall, upon a large scaffold hung with black, and closely 
 surrounded with guards. Two executioners in masks attended 
 (one wearing a long gray beard), beside a block and cushion. 
 Juxon, a bishop of the Church of England, assisted the King's 
 devotions. As Charles laid his head on the block, he addressed 
 to the bishop, emphatically, the word remember 1 and then 
 gave the signal for the fatal stroke. One executioner struck 
 the head from the shoulders at a single blow ; the other held 
 it up, and proclaimed it the head of a traitor. The soldiers 
 shouted in triumph, but the multitude generally burst out into 
 tears and lamentations. 
 
 This tragic spectacle was far from accomplishing the pur- 
 pose intended by those who had designed it. On the contrary, 
 the King's serene and religious behaviour at his trial and exe- 
 cution excited the sympathy and sorrow of many who had been 
 his enemies when in power ; the injustice and brutality, which 
 he bore with so much dignity, overpowered the remembrance 
 of the errors of which he had been guilty; and the almost 
 universal sense of the iniquity of his sentence, was a princi- 
 pal cause of the subsequent restoration of his family to the 
 throne. 
 
 1 " It being remarked that the King, the moment before he stretched 
 out his neck to the executioner, had said to Juxon, with a very earnest 
 accent, the single word REMEMBER ! great mysteries were supposed to be 
 concealed under that expression ; and the generals vehemently insisted 
 with the prelate that he should inform them of the King's meaning. Juxon 
 told them, that the King, having frequently charged him to inculcate on 
 his son the forgiveness of the murderers, had taken this opportunity, in 
 the last moment of his life, when his commands, he supposed, would be 
 regarded as sacred and inviolable, to reiterate that desire ; and that his 
 mild spirit thus terminated its present course by an act of benevolence 
 towards his greatest enemies. " HOME.
 
 514 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLV1 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI 
 
 Montrose makes a Descent on the Highlands taken prisoner and Exe- 
 cuted Charles II. arrives in Scotland Cromwell's Invasion of 
 Scotland Battle of Dunbar Coronation of Charles II. marches 
 into England defeated at Worcester escapes abroad War in 
 Scotland under General Monk Cromwell makes himself Lord 
 Protector of Great Britain and Ireland Glencairn's Rising- 
 Exploits of Evan Dhu, of Lochiel, Chief of the Camerons 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGN. France : Louis XIV. 
 1649 1654 
 
 THE death of Charles I. was nowhere more deeply resented 
 than in his native couiitry of Scotland ; and the national pride 
 of the Scots was the more hurt, that they could not but bo 
 conscious that the surrender of his person by their army at 
 Newcastle was the event which contributed immediately to 
 place him in the hands of his enemies. 
 
 The government, since the Whigamores' Raid, had con- 
 tinued in the hands of Argyle and the more rigid Presbyterians ; 
 but even they, no friends to the House of Stewart, were bound 
 by the Covenant, which was their rule in all things, to acknow- 
 ledge the hereditary descent of their ancient Kings, and call to 
 the throne Charles, the eldest son of the deceased monarch, 
 provided he would consent to unite with his subjects in taking 
 the Solemn League and Covenant, for the support of Presby- 
 tery, and the putting down of all other forms of religion. The 
 Scottish Parliament met, and resolved accordingly to proclaim 
 Charles IT. their lawful sovereign ; but, at the same time, not 
 to admit him to the actual power as such, until he should give 
 security for the religion, unity, and peace of the kingdoms. 
 Commissioners were sent to wait upon Charles, who had re- 
 tired to the Continent, in order to offer him the throne of 
 Scotland on these terms. 
 
 The young Prince had already around him counsellors of a 
 different character. The celebrated Marquis of Montrose, and 
 other Scottish nobles, few in number, but animated by their 
 leader's courage and zeal, advised him to reject the proposal of
 
 1649-50 DEFEAT OF MONTROSE 515 
 
 the Presbyterians to recall him to the regal dignity on such 
 conditions, and offered their swords and lives to place him on 
 the throne by force of arms. 
 
 It appears that Charles II., who never had any deep sense 
 of integrity, was willing to treat with both of these parties at 
 one and the same time ; and that he granted a commission to 
 the Marquis to attempt a descent on Scotland, taking the 
 chance of what might be accomplished by his far-famed fortune 
 and dauntless enterprise, while he kept a negotiation afloat 
 with the Presbyterian commissioners, in case of Montrose's 
 failure. 
 
 That intrepid but rash enthusiast embarked at Hamburgh, 
 with some arms and treasure, supplied by the northern courts 
 of Europe. His fame drew around him a few of the emigrant 
 Royalists, chiefly Scottish, and he recruited about six hundred 
 German mercenaries. His first descent was on the Orkney 
 Islands, where he forced to arms a few hundreds of un warlike 
 fishermen. He next disembarked on the mainland ; but the 
 natives fled from him, remembering the former excesses of his 
 army. Strachan, an officer under Lesley, came upon 
 the Marquis by surprise, near a pass called Inverchar- 
 ron, on the confines of Ross-shire. The Orkney men 
 made but little resistance ; the Germans retired to a wood, and 
 there surrendered ; the few Scottish companions of Montrose 
 fought bravely, but in vain. Many gallant cavaliers were 
 made prisoners. Montrose, when the day was irretrievably 
 lost, threw off his cloak bearing the star, and afterwards changed 
 clothes with an ordinary Highland kern, that he might endea- 
 vour to effect his escape, and swam across the river Kyle. 
 Exhausted with fatigue and hunger, he was at length taken 
 by a Ross-shire chief, MacLeod of Assint, who happened to 
 be out with a party of his men in arms. The Marquis dis- 
 covered himself to this man, thinking himself secure of favour, 
 since Assint had been once his own follower. But, tempted 
 by a reward of four hundred bolls of meal, this wretched chief 
 delivered his old commander into the unfriendly hands of 
 David Lesley. 1 
 
 The Covenanters, when he who had so often made them 
 
 1 Assint was afterwards tried at Edinburgh, for his treachery, but by 
 means of bribery and the corrupt influence of the times, he escaped 
 punishment. WISH ART.
 
 516 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLV1 
 
 tremble was at length delivered into their hands, celebrated 
 their victory with all the exultation of mean, timid, and sullen 
 spirits, suddenly released from apprehension of imminent danger. 
 Montrose was dragged in a sort of triumph from town to 
 town, in the mean garb in which he had disguised himself 
 for flight To the honour of the town of Dundee, which, you 
 will recollect, had been partly plundered and partly burnt by 
 Montrose's forces, during his eventful progress in 1645, the 
 citizens of that town were the first who supplied their fallen 
 foe with clothes befitting his rank, with money, and with 
 necessaries. The Marquis himself must have felt this as a 
 severe rebuke for the wasteful mode in which he had carried 
 on his warfare ; and it was a still more piercing reproach to 
 the unworthy victors, who now triumphed over a heroic enemy 
 in the same manner as they would have done over a detected 
 felon. 
 
 While Montrose was confined in the house of the Laird of 
 Grange, in Fifeshire, he had almost made his escape through 
 the bold stratagem of the Laird's wife, a descendant of the 
 house of Somerville. This lady's address had drenched the 
 guards with liquor ; and the Marquis, disguised in female attire, 
 with which she had furnished him, had already passed the 
 sleeping sentinels, when he was challenged and stopped by a 
 half-drunken soldier, who had been rambling about without 
 any duty or purpose. The alarm being given, he was again 
 secured, and the lady's plot was of no avail. She escaped 
 punishment only by her husband's connection with the ruling 
 party. 
 
 Before Montrose reached Edinburgh, he had been condemned 
 by the Parliament to the death of a traitor. The sentence was 
 pronounced, without further trial, upon an act of attainder passed 
 whilst he was plundering Argyle in the winter of 1644 ; and 
 it was studiously aggravated by every species of infamy. 
 
 The Marquis was, according to the special order of Parliament, 
 met at the gates by the magistrates, attended by the common 
 hangman, who was clad for the time in his own livery. He 
 was appointed, as the most infamous mode of execution, to be 
 hanged on a gibbet thirty feet high, his head to be fixed on 
 the tolbooth or prison of Edinburgh, his body to be quartered, 
 and his limbs to be placed over the gates of the principal towns 
 of Scotland. According to the sentence, he was conducted to
 
 1650 TRIAL OF MONTROSE 517 
 
 jail on a cart, whereon was fixed a high bench, on which he was 
 placed, bound and bareheaded, the horse led by the executioner, 
 wearing his bonnet, and the noble prisoner exposed to the scorn 
 of the people, who were expected to hoot and revile him. But 
 the rabble, who came out with the rudest purposes, relented 
 when they saw the dignity of his bearing; and silence, ac- 
 companied by the sighs and tears of the crowd, attended the 
 progress, which his enemies had designed should excite other 
 emotions. The only observation he made was, that "the 
 ceremonial of his entrance had been somewhat fatiguing and 
 tedious." 
 
 He was next brought before the Parliament to hear the 
 terms of his sentence, where he appeared with the same manly 
 indifference. He gazed around on his assembled enemies with 
 as much composure as the most unconcerned spectator ; heard 
 Loudon, the chancellor, upbraid him, in a long and violent 
 declamation, with the breach of both the first and second 
 Covenant ; with his cruel wars at the head of the savage Irish 
 and Highlandmen ; and with the murders, treasons, and con- 
 flagrations, which they had occasioned. When the chancellor 
 had finished, Montrose with difficulty obtained permission to 
 reply. 
 
 He told the Parliament, with his usual boldness, that if he 
 appeared before them uncovered, and addressed them with 
 respect, it was only because the King had acknowledged their 
 assembly, by entering into a treaty with them. He admitted 
 he had taken the first, or National Covenant, and had acted 
 upon it so long as it was confined to its proper purposes, but 
 had dissented from and opposed those who had used it as a pre- 
 text for assailing the Royal authority. " The second, or Solemn 
 League and Covenant," he said, " he had never taken, and was 
 therefore in no respect bound by it. He had made war by the 
 King's express commission ; and although it was impossible, in 
 the course of hostilities, absolutely to prevent acts of military 
 violence, he had always disowned and punished such irregulari- 
 ties. He had never," he said, " spilt the blood of a prisoner, 
 even in retaliation of the cold-blooded murder of his officers and 
 friends nay, he had spared the lives of thousands in the very 
 shock of battle. His last undertaking," he continued, "was 
 carried on at the express command of Charles II., whom they 
 had proclaimed their sovereign, and with whom they were treat-
 
 518 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLVl 
 
 ing as such. Therefore, he desired to be used by them as a man 
 and a Christian, to whom many of them had been indebted for 
 life and property, when the fate of war had placed both in his 
 power. He required them, in conclusion, to proceed with him 
 according to the laws of nature and nations, but especially 
 according to those of Scotland, as they themselves would 
 expect to be judged when they stood at the bar of Almighty 
 God." 
 
 The sentence already mentioned was then read to the un- 
 daunted prisoner, on which he observed, he was more honoured 
 in having his head set on the prison, for the cause in which he 
 died, than he would have been had they decreed a golden 
 statue to be erected to him in the market-place, or in having 
 his picture in the King's bedchamber. As to the distribution 
 of his limbs, he said he wished he had flesh enough to send 
 some to each city of Europe, in memory of the cause in which 
 he died. He spent the night in reducing these ideas into 
 poetry. 1 
 
 Early on the morning of the next day he was awakened by 
 the drums and trumpets calling out the guards, by orders of 
 Parliament, to attend on his execution. "Alas !" he said, "I 
 have given these good folks much trouble while alive, and do I 
 continue to be a terror to them on the day I am to die ?" 
 
 The clergy importuned him, urging repentance of his sins, 
 and offering, on his expressing such compunction, to relieve him 
 from the sentence of excommunication, under which he laboured. 
 He calmly replied, that though the excommunication had been 
 rashly pronounced, yet it gave him pain, and he desired to be 
 freed from it, if a relaxation could be obtained, by expressing 
 penitence for his offences as a man ; but that he had committed 
 none in his duty to his prince and country, and, therefore, had 
 none to acknowledge or repent of. 
 
 1 The following lines were written with the point of a diamond upon 
 the window of hia prison : 
 
 " Let them bestow on every airth 1 a limb, 
 Then open all my veins, that I may swim 
 To thee, my Maker, in that crimson lake ; 
 Then place my parboil'd head upon a stake ; 
 Scatter my ashes, strew them in the air. 
 Lord I since thou knowest where all these atoms are, 
 I'm hopeful thoul't recover once my dust, 
 And confident thoul't raise me with the just.' 
 
 i AM point of the compass.
 
 1650 EXECUTION OF MONTROSE 519 
 
 Johnstone of Warriston, an eminent Covenanter, intruded 
 himself on the noble prisoner, while he was combing the long 
 curled hair which he wore as a cavalier. Warriston, a gloomy 
 fanatic, hinted as if it were but an idle employment at so 
 solemn a time. " I will arrange my head as I please to-day, 
 while it is still my own," answered Montrose ; " to-morrow it 
 will be yours, and you may deal with it as you list." 
 
 The Marquis walked on foot, from the prison to the Grass- 
 market, the common place of execution for the basest felons, 
 where a gibbet of extraordinary height, with a scaffold covered 
 with black cloth, was erected. Here he was again pressed by 
 the Presbyterian clergy to own his guilt. Their cruel and 
 illiberal officiousness could not disturb the serenity of his 
 temper. To exaggerate the infamy of his punishment, or 
 rather to show the mean spite of his enemies, a book, containing 
 the printed history of his exploits, was hung around his neck 
 by the hangman. This insult, likewise, he treated with con- 
 tempt, saying, he accounted such a record of his services to his 
 prince as a symbol equally honourable with the badge of the 
 Garter, which the King had bestowed on him. In all other 
 particulars, Montrose bore himself with the same calm dignity, 
 and finally submitted to execution with such resolved courage, 
 that many, even of his bitterest enemies, wept on the occasion. 
 He suffered on the 21st of May 1650. 
 
 Argyle, the mortal foe of Montrose, exulted in private over 
 the death of his enemy, but abstained from appearing in 
 Parliament when he was condemned, and from witnessing his 
 execution. He is even said to have shed tears when he heard 
 the sceue rehearsed. His son, Lord Lorn, was less scrupulous ; 
 he looked on his feudal enemy's last moments, and even watched 
 the blows of the executioner's axe, while he dissevered the head 
 from the body. His cruelty was requited in the subsequent 
 reign ; and indeed Heaven soon after made manifest the folly, 
 as well as guilt, which destroyed this celebrated commander, at 
 a time when approaching war might have rendered his talents 
 invaluable to his country. 
 
 Other noble Scottish blood was spilt at the same time, both 
 at home and in England. The Marquis of Huntly, who had 
 always acted for the King, though he had injured his affairs by 
 his hesitation to co-operate with Montrose, was beheaded at 
 Edinburgh ; and Urry, who had been sometimes the enemy,
 
 520 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLV1 
 
 sometimes the follower of Montrose, was executed with others 
 of the Marquis's principal followers. 
 
 The unfortunate Duke of Hamilton, a man of a gentle but 
 indecisive character, was taken, as I have told you, in his attempt 
 to invade England and deliver the King, whom he seems to 
 have served with fidelity, though he fell under his suspicion, and 
 even suffered a long imprisonment by the Royal order. While 
 he was confined at Windsor, Charles, previous to his trial, was 
 brought there by the soldiers. The dethroned King was permitted 
 a momentary interview with the subject, who had lost fortune 
 and liberty in his cause. Hamilton burst into tears, and flung 
 himself at the King's feet, exclaiming, "My dear master !"- 
 " I have been a dear master to you indeed," said Charles, kindly 
 raising him. After the execution of the King, Hamilton, with 
 the Earl of Holland, Lord Capel, and others, who had promoted 
 the rising of the Royalists on different points, were condemned 
 to be beheaded. A stout old cavalier, Sir John Owen, was one 
 of the number. When the sentence was prououuced, he ex- 
 claimed it was a great honour to a poor Welsh knight to be 
 beheaded with so many nobles, adding, with an oath, " I thought 
 they would have hanged me." This gallant old man's life was 
 spared, when his companions in misfortune were executed. 
 
 While these bloody scenes were proceeding, the Commis- 
 sioners of the Scottish Parliament continued to carry on the 
 treaty with Charles II. He had nearly broken it off, when 
 Montrose's execution was reported to him ; but a sense of his 
 own duplicity in maintaining a treaty with the Parliament, 
 while he gave Montrose a commission to invade and make war 
 on them, smothered his complaints on the subject. At length 
 Charles, seeing no other resource, agreed to accept the crown 
 of Scotland on the terms offered, which were those of the most 
 absolute compliance with the will of the Scottish Parliament in 
 civil affairs, and with the pleasure of the General Assembly of 
 the Kirk in ecclesiastical concerns. Above all, the young King 
 promised to take upon him the obligations of the Solemn 
 League and Covenant, and to further them by every 
 16t ie6o! ne means i n hi 8 power. On these conditions the treaty 
 was concluded; Charles sailed from Holland, and 
 arriving on the coast of Scotland, landed near the mouth of the 
 river Spey, and advanced to Stirling. 
 
 Scotland was at this time divided into three parties, highly
 
 1650 PARTIES IN SCOTLAND 521 
 
 inimical to each other. There was, FIRST, the rigid Presby- 
 terians, of whom Argyle was the leader. This was the faction 
 which had, since the Whigamores' Raid, been in possession of 
 the supreme power of government, and with its leaders the King 
 had made the treaty in Holland. SECONDLY, the moderate 
 Presbyterians, called the Engagers, who had joined with 
 Hamilton in his incursion into England. These were headed 
 by the Earl of Lanark, who succeeded to the dukedom of 
 Hamilton on the execution of his brother ; by Lauderdale, a 
 man of very considerable talents; Dunfermline and others. 
 THIRDLY, there was the party of the Absolute Loyalists, friends 
 and followers of Montrose; such as the Marquis of Huntly, 
 Lord Ogilvy, a few other nobles and gentlemen, and some 
 Highland chiefs, too ignorant and too remotely situated to have 
 any influence in state affairs. 
 
 As all these three parties acknowledged, with more or less 
 warmth, the sovereignty of King Charles, it might have seemed 
 no very difficult matter to have united them in the same 
 patriotic purpose of maintaining the national independence of 
 the kingdom. But successful resistance to the English was a 
 task to which the high Presbyterians, being the ruling party, 
 thought themselves perfectly competent. Indeed they enter- 
 tained the most presumptuous confidence in their own strength, 
 and their clergy assured them, that so far from the aid of either 
 Engagers or Malignants being profitable to them in the common 
 defence, the presence of any such profane assistants would draw 
 down the curse of Heaven on the cause, which, if trusted to the 
 hands of true Covenanters only, coidd not fail to prosper. 
 
 Argyle, therefore, and his friends, received the young King 
 with all the outward marks of profound respect. But they 
 took care to give him his own will in no one particular. They 
 excluded from attendance on his person all his English adher- 
 ents, suspicious of their attachment to Prelacy and malignant 
 opinions. The ministers beset him with exhortations and 
 sermons of immoderate length, introduced on all occasions, and 
 exhausting the patience of a young prince, whose strong sense 
 of the ridiculous, and impatience of serious subjects, led Mm to 
 receive with heartfelt contempt and disgust the homely eloquence 
 of the long-winded orators. The preachers also gave him 
 offence, by choosing frequently for their themes the sins of his 
 father, the idolatry of his mother, who was a Catholic, and what
 
 522 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLVl 
 
 they frankly termed his own ill-disguised disposition to malignity 
 They numbered up the judgments which, they affirmed, these 
 sins had brought on his father's house, and they prayed that 
 they might not be followed by similar punishments upon Charles 
 himself. These ill-timed and ill-judged admonitions were so 
 often repeated, as to impress on the young King's mind a feeling 
 of dislike and disgust, with which he remembered the Presby- 
 terian preachers and their doctrines as long as he lived. 
 
 Sometimes their fanaticism and want of judgment led to 
 ridiculous scenes. It is said, that on one occasion a devout 
 lady, who lived opposite to the Royal lodgings, saw from her 
 window the young King engaged in a game at cards, or some 
 other frivolous amusement, which the rigour of the Covenanters 
 denounced as sinful. The lady communicated this important 
 discovery to her minister, and it reached the ears of the Com- 
 mission of the Kirk, who named a venerable member of their 
 body to rebuke the monarch personally for this act of backsliding. 
 The clergyman to whom this delicate commission was entrusted 
 was a shrewd old man, who saw no great wisdom in the pro- 
 ceedings of his brethren, but executed their commands with 
 courtly dexterity, and summed up his ghostly admonition with 
 a request, that when his Majesty indulged in similar recreations, 
 he would be pleased to take the precaution of shutting the 
 windows. The King laughed, and was glad to escape so well 
 from the apprehended lecture. But events were fast approach- 
 ing which had no jesting aspect. 
 
 England, to which you must now turn your attention, had 
 totally changed its outward constitution since the death of the 
 King. Cromwell, who, using the victorious army as his tools, 
 was already in the real possession of the supreme power, had 
 still more tasks than one to accomplish before he dared venture 
 to assume the external appearance of it. He suffered, therefore, 
 the diminished and mutilated House of Commons to exist for a 
 season, during which the philosophical Republicans of the party 
 passed resolutions that monarchy should never be again estab- 
 lished in England ; that the power of the Executive Govern- 
 ment should be lodged in a Council of State ; and that the 
 House of Lords should be abolished. 
 
 Meantime, Cromwell led in person a part of his victorious 
 army to Ireland, which had been the scene of more frightful 
 disorders than England, or even Scotland. These had begun
 
 1650 CROMWELL'S INVASION 523 
 
 by the Catholic inhabitants rising upon the Protestants, and 
 murdering many thousands of them in what is termed the 
 Irish Massacre. This had been followed by a general war be- 
 tween the opposite parties in religion, but at length the address 
 of the Duke of Ormond, as devoted a loyalist as Montrose, 
 contrived to engage a large portion of the Catholics on the side 
 of Charles ; and Ireland became the place of refuge to all the 
 Cavaliers, or remains of the Royal party, who began to assume 
 a formidable appearance in that island. The arrival of Cromwell 
 suddenly changed this gleam of fortune into cloud and storm. 
 Wherever this fated general appeared he was victorious ; and in 
 Ireland, in order perhaps to strike terror into a fierce people 
 (for Oliver Cromwell was not bloodthirsty by disposition), he 
 made dreadful execution among the vanquished, particularly 
 at the storming of the town of Drogheda, where his troops 
 spared neither sex nor age. He now returned to England, 
 with even greater terror attached to his name than before. 
 
 The new Commonwealth of England had no intention that 
 the son of the King whom they had put to death should be 
 suffered to establish himself quietly in the sister kingdom of 
 Scotland, and enjoy the power, when opportunity offered, of 
 again calling to arms his numerous adherents in England, and 
 disturbing, or perhaps destroying, their new-modelled republic. 
 They were resolved to prevent this danger by making war on 
 Scotland, while still weakened by her domestic dissensions ; and 
 compelling her to adopt the constitution of a republic, and to 
 become confederated with their own. This proposal was of 
 course haughtily rejected by the Scots, as it implied a renuncia- 
 tion at once of king and kirk, aud a total alteration of the 
 Scottish constitution in civil and ecclesiastical government. 
 The ruling parties of both nations, therefore, prepared for the 
 contest. 
 
 The rigid Presbyterians in Scotland showed now a double 
 anxiety to exclude from their army all, however otherwise 
 well qualified to assist in such a crisis, whom they regarded as 
 suspicious, whether as absolute malignants, or as approaching 
 nearer to their own doctrines, by professing only a moderate 
 and tolerant attachment to Presbytery. 
 
 Yet even without the assistance of these excluded parties, 
 the Convention of Estates assembled a fine army, full of men 
 enthusiastic in the cause in which they were about to fight :
 
 624 TAXES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLVI 
 
 and feeling all the impulse which could be given by the nide 
 eloquence of their favourite ministers. Unfortunately the 
 preachers were not disposed to limit themselves to the task of 
 animating the courage of the soldiers ; but were so presumptuous 
 as to interfere with and control the plans of the general, and 
 movements of the army. 
 
 The army of England, consisting almost entirely of Inde- 
 pendents, amongst whom any man who chose might assume 
 the office of a clergyman, resembled the Presbyterian troops 
 of Scotland; for both armies professed to appeal to Heaven 
 for the justice of their cause, and both resounded with psalms, 
 prayers, exhortations, and religious exercises, to confirm the 
 faith, and animate the zeal of the soldiers. Both likewise 
 used the same language in their proclamations against each 
 other, and it was such as implied a war rather on account of 
 religion than of temporal interests. The Scottish proclama- 
 tions declared the army commanded by Cromwell to be a 
 union of the most perverse heretical sectaries, of every different 
 persuasion, agreeing in nothing, saving their desire to effect 
 the ruin of the unity and discipline of the Christian Church, 
 and the destruction of the Covenant, to which most of their 
 leaders had sworn fidelity. The army of Cromwell replied to 
 them in the same style. They declared that they valued the 
 Christian Church ten thousand times more than their own 
 lives. They protested that they were not only a rod of iron to 
 dash asunder the common enemies, but a hedge (though un- 
 worthy) about the divine vineyard. As for the Covenant, they 
 protested that, were it not for making it an object of idolatry, 
 they would be content, if called upon to encounter the Scots 
 in this quarrel, to place that national engagement on the point 
 of their pikes, and let God himself judge whether they or their 
 opponents had best observed its obligations. 
 
 Although the contending nations thus nearly resembled 
 each other in their ideas and language, there was betwixt the 
 Scottish and English soldiers one difference, and it proved a 
 material one. In the English army the officers insisted upon 
 being preachers, and though their doctrine was wild enough, 
 their ignorance of theology had no effect on military events. 
 But with the Scots, the Presbyterian clergy were unhappily 
 seized with the opposite rage of acting as officers and 
 generals, and their skill in their own profession of divinitj
 
 1650 CROMWELL'S INVASION 525 
 
 could not redeem the errors which they committed in the art 
 of war. 
 
 Fairfax having declined the command of the English army, 
 his conscience (for he was a Presbyterian) not permitting 
 him to engage in the war, Cromwell accepted with joy the 
 supreme military authority, and prepared for the invasion of 
 Scotland. 
 
 The wars between the sister kingdoms seemed now about 
 to be rekindled, after the interval of two-thirds of a century ; 
 and notwithstanding the greatly superior power of England, 
 there was no room for absolute confidence in her ultimate 
 success. The Scots, though divided into parties, so far as 
 church government was concerned, were unanimous in ac- 
 knowledging the right of King Charles, whereas the English 
 were far from making common cause against his claims. On 
 the contrary, if the stern army of sectaries, now about to take 
 the field, should sustain any great disaster, the Cavaliers of 
 England, with great part of the Presbyterians in that country, 
 were alike disposed to put the King once more at the head of 
 the government; so that the fate not of Scotland alone, but 
 of England also, was committed to the event of the present 
 war. 
 
 Neither were the armies and generals opposed to each othei 
 unworthy of the struggle. If the army of Cromwell consisted 
 of veteran soldiers, inured to constant victory, that of Scotland 
 was fresh, numerous, and masters of their own strong country, 
 which was the destined scene of action. If Cromwell had de- 
 feated the most celebrated generals of the Cavaliers, David 
 Lesley, the effective commander-in-chief in Scotland, had been 
 victor over Montrose, more renowned perhaps than any of them. 
 If Cromwell was a general of the most decisive character, cele- 
 brated for the battles which he had won, Lesley was, by early 
 education, a trained soldier, more skilful than his antagonist 
 in taking positions, defending passes, and all the previous 
 arrangements of a campaign. With these advantages on the 
 different sides, the eventful struggle commenced. 
 
 Early in the summer of 1650 Cromwell invaded Scotland 
 at the head of his veteran and well-disciplined troops. But, on 
 marching through Berwickshire and East Lothian, he fouud 
 that the country was abandoned by the population, and stripped 
 of everything which could supply the hostile army. Nothing
 
 526 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLVI 
 
 was to be seen save old spectre -looking women, clothed in 
 white flannel, who told the English officers that all the men 
 had taken arms, under command of the barons. 
 
 Subsisting chiefly on the provisions supplied by a fleet, 
 which, sailing along the coast, accompanied his movements, 
 the English general approached the capital, where Lesley had 
 fixed his headquarters. The right wing of the Scottish army 
 rested upon the high grounds at the rise of the mountain called 
 Arthur's Seat, and the left wing was posted at Leith ; while 
 the high bank, formerly called Leith Walk, made a part of his 
 lines, which, defended by a numerous artillery, completely pro- 
 tected the metropolia Cromwell skirmished with the Scottish 
 advanced posts near to Restalrig, but his cuirassiers were so 
 warmly encountered that they gained no advantage, and their 
 general was obliged to withdraw to Musselburgh. His next 
 effort was made from the westward. 
 
 The English army made a circuit from the coast, proceeding 
 inland to Colinton, Redhall, and other places near to the eastern 
 extremity of the Pentland hills, from which Cromwell hoped 
 to advance on Edinburgh. But Lesley was immediately on his 
 guard. He left his position betwixt Edinburgh and Leith, and 
 took up one which covered the city to the westward, and was 
 protected by the Water of Leith, and the several cute, drains, 
 and mill-leads, at Saughton, Coltbridge, and the houses and 
 villages in that quarter. Here Cromwell again found the Scots 
 in order of battle, and again was obliged to withdraw after a 
 distant cannonade. 
 
 The necessity of returning to the neighbourhood of his fleet 
 obliged Cromwell to march back to his encampment at Mussel- 
 burgh. Nor was he permitted to remain there in quiet. At 
 the dead of night a strong body of cavalry, called the regiment 
 of the Kirk, well armed at all points, broke into the English 
 lines, with loud cries of " God and the Kirk ! all is ours 1" It 
 was with some difficulty that Cromwell rallied his soldiers upon 
 this sudden alarm, in which he sustained considerable loss, 
 though the assailants were finally compelled to retreat. 
 
 The situation of the English army now became critical ; their 
 provisions were nearly exhausted, the communication with the 
 fleet grew daily more precarious, while Lesley, with the same 
 prudence which had hitherto guided his defence, baffled all the 
 schemes of the English loader, without exposing his army to the
 
 1650 BATTLE OF DUNBAR 527 
 
 risk of a general action ; until Cromwell, fairly outgeneralled 
 by the address of his enemy, was compelled to retire towards 
 England. 
 
 Lesley, on his part, left his encampment without delay, for 
 the purpose of intercepting the retreat of the English. Mov- 
 ing by a shorter line than Cromwell, who was obliged to keep 
 the coast, he took possession with his army of the skirts of 
 Lammermoor, a ridge of hills terminating on the sea near the 
 town of Duiibar, abounding with difficult passes, all of which 
 he occupied strongly. Here he proposed to await the attack 
 of the English, with every chance, nay, almost with the certainty, 
 of gaining a great and decisive victory. 
 
 Cromwell was reduced to much perplexity. To force his 
 way, it was necessary to attack a tremendous pass called Cock- 
 burn's path, where, according to Cromwell's own description, one 
 man might do more to defend than twelve to make way. And 
 if he engaged in this desperate enterprise, he was liable to be 
 assaulted by the numerous forces of Lesley in flank and rear. 
 He saw all the danger, and entertained thoughts of embarking 
 his foot on board of his ships, and cutting his own way to 
 England as he best could, at the head of his cavalry. 
 
 At this moment, the interference of the Presbyterian 
 preachers, and the influence which they possessed over the 
 Scottish army and its general, ruined this fair promise of success. 
 In spite of all the prudent remonstrances of Lesley, they in- 
 sisted that the Scottish army should be led from their strong 
 position, to attack the English upon equal ground. This, in 
 the language of Scripture, they called going down against the 
 Philistines at Gilgal. 
 
 Cromwell had slept at the Duke of Roxburghe's house, called 
 Broxmouth, half a mile east of Dunbar, and his army was 
 stationed in the park there, when he received news that the 
 Scots were leaving their fastnesses, and about to hazard a battle 
 on the level plain. He exclaimed, " That God had delivered 
 them into his hands ;" and calling for his horse, placed himself 
 at the head of his troops. Coming to the head of a regiment 
 of Lancashire men, he found one of their officers, while they 
 were in the act of marching to battle, in a fit of sudden 
 enthusiasm holding forth or preaching to the men. Cromwell 
 also listened, and seemed affected by his discourse. At this 
 moment the sun showed his broad orb on the level surface of
 
 528 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLVI 
 
 the sea, which is close to the scene of action. " Let the Lord 
 arise," he said, " and let his enemies be scattered ;" and presently 
 after, looking upon the field where the battle had now commenced, 
 he added, " I profess they flee." 
 
 Cromwell's hopes did not deceive him. The hastily raised 
 Scottish levies, thus presumptuously opposed to the veteran 
 soldiers of the English commander, proved unequal to 
 p stand the shock. Two regiments fought bravely and 
 were almost all cut off; but the greater part of Lesley's army 
 fell into confusion without much resistance. Great slaughter 
 ensued, and many prisoners were made, whom the cruelty of the 
 English government destined to a fate hitherto unknown in 
 Christian warfare. They transported to the English settlements 
 in America those unfortunate captives, subjects of an independent 
 kingdom, who bore arms by order of their own lawful govern- 
 ment, and there sold them for slaves. 
 
 The decisive defeat at Dunbar opened the whole of the south 
 of Scotland to Cromwell. The Independents found a few friends 
 and brother sectaries among the gentry, who had been hitherto 
 deterred, by the fear of the Presbyterians, from making their 
 opinions public. Almost all the strong places on the south side 
 of the Forth were won by the arms of the English or yielded by 
 the timidity of their defenders. Edinburgh Castle was sur- 
 rendered, not without suspicion of gross treachery ; and Tan- 
 tallon, Hume, Roslin, and Borthwick, with other fortresses, 
 fell into their hands. 
 
 Internal dissension added to the calamitous state of Scotland. 
 The Committee of Estates, with the King, and the remainder 
 of Lesley's army, retreated to Stirling, where they still hoped to 
 make a stand, by defending the passes of the Forth. A Parlia 
 meut, held at Perth, was in this extremity disposed to relax in 
 the extreme rigour of its exclusive doctrines, and to admit into 
 the army, which it laboured to reinforce, such of the moderate 
 Presbyterians, or Engagers, and even of the Royalists and 
 Malignants, as were inclined to make a formal confession of 
 their former errors. The Royalists readily enough complied with 
 this requisition ; but as their pretended repentance was generally 
 regarded as a mere farce, submitted to that they might obtain 
 leave to bear arms for the King, the stricter Presbyterians 
 looked upon this compromise with Malignants as a sinful seek- 
 ing for help from Egypt. The Presbyterians of the western
 
 1650 REMONSTRATORS 529 
 
 counties, in particular, carried this opinion so far, as to think 
 this period of national distress an auspicious time for disclaiming 
 the King's interest and title. Refusing to allow that the victory 
 of Dunbar was owing to the military skill of Cromwell and the 
 disciplined valour of his troops, they set it down as a chastise- 
 ment justly inflicted on the Scottish nation for espousing the 
 Royal causa Under this separate banner there assembled an 
 army of about four thousand men, commanded by Kerr and 
 Strachan. They were resolved, at the same time, to oppose the 
 English invasion, and to fight with the King's forces, and thus 
 embroil the kingdom in a threefold war. The leaders of this third 
 party, who were called Remonstrators, made a smart attack on a 
 large body of English troops, stationed in Hamilton under General 
 Lambert, and were at first successful ; but falling into disorder, 
 owing to their very success, they were ultimately defeated. Kerr, 
 one of their leaders, was wounded, and made prisoner; and 
 Strachan soon afterwards revolted, and joined the English army. 
 
 Cromwell, in the meanwhile, made the fairest promises to all 
 who would listen to him, and laboured, not altogether in vain, 
 to impress the rigid Presbyterian party with a belief, that they 
 had better join with the Independents, although disallowing of 
 church-government, and thus obtain peace and a close alliance 
 with England, than adhere to the cause of the King, who, 
 with his father's house, had, he said, been so long the troublera 
 of Israel And here I may interrupt the course of public events, 
 to tell you an anecdote not generally known, but curious as 
 illustrating the character of Cromwell. 
 
 Shortly after the battle of Dunbar, Cromwell visited Glasgow ; 
 and on Sunday attended the Presbyterian service in the principal 
 church of that city. The preacher, a rigid Presbyterian, was 
 nothing intimidated by the presence of the English general ; but 
 entering freely upon state affairs, which were then a common topic 
 in the pulpit, he preached boldly on the errors and heresies of 
 the Independent sectaries, insisted on the duty of resisting their 
 doctrines, and even spoke with little respect of the person of 
 Cromwell himself. An officer who sat behind Cromwell 
 whispered something in his ear more than once, and the general 
 as often seemed to impose silence upon him. The curiosity of 
 the congregation was strongly excited. At length the service 
 was ended, and Cromwell was in the act of leaving the church, 
 when he cast his eyes on one Wilson, a mechanic who had long 
 
 34
 
 530 TALKS OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLV1 
 
 resided at Glasgow, aud called on him by name. The man no 
 sooner saw the general take notice of him than he ran away. 
 Cromwell directed that he should be followed and brought be- 
 fore him, but without injury. At the same time he sent a civil 
 message to the clergyman who had preached, desiring to see 
 him at his quarters. These things augmented the curiosity of 
 the town's people ; and when they saw Wilson led as prisoner to 
 the general's apartments, many remained about the door, watch- 
 ing the result. Wilson soon returned, and joyfully showed his 
 acquaintances some money which the English general had given 
 him to drink his health. His business with Cromwell was 
 easily explained. This man had been son of a footman who 
 had attended James VI. to England. By some accident Wilson 
 had served his apprenticeship to a shoemaker in the same town 
 where Cromwell's father lived, had often played with Master 
 Oliver while they were both children, and had obliged him by 
 making balls and other playthings for him. When Wilson saw 
 that his old companion recognised him, he ran away, because, 
 recollecting his father had been a servant of the Royal 
 family, he thought the general, who was known to have brought 
 the late King to the block, might nourish ill-will against all 
 who were connected with him. But Cromwell had received him 
 kindly, spoken of their childish acquaintance, and gave him some 
 money. The familiarity with which he seemed to treat him 
 encouraged Wilson to ask his former friend what it was that 
 passed betwixt the officer and him, when the preacher was 
 thundering from the pulpit against the sectaries and their 
 general. " He called the clergyman an insolent rascal," said 
 Cromwell, not unwilling, perhaps, that his forbearance should be 
 made public, " and asked my leave to pull him out of the pulpit 
 by the ears ; and I commanded him to sit still, telling him the 
 minister was one fool, and he another." This anecdote serves 
 to show Cromwell's recollection of persons and faces. He next 
 gave audience to the preacher, and used arguments with him 
 which did not reach the public ; but were so convincing, that 
 the minister pronounced a second discourse in the evening, in a 
 tone much mitigated towards Independency and its professors. 
 
 While the south of Scotland was overawed, and the Western 
 Remoustrators were dispersed by Cromwell, the Scottish Parlia- 
 ment, though retired beyond the Forth, still maintained a 
 show of decided opposition. They resolved upon the coronation
 
 1650-1 CORONATION OF CHARLES IL 531 
 
 of Charles, a ceremony hitherto deferred, but which they deter- 
 mined now to perform, as a solemn pledge of their resolution to 
 support the constitution and religion of Scotland to the last. 
 
 But the melancholy solemnity had been nearly prevented by 
 the absence of the principal personage. Charles, disgusted with 
 the invectives of the Presbyterian clergy, and perhaps remember- 
 ing the fate of his father at Newcastle, formed a hasty purpose 
 of flying from the Presbyterian camp. He had not been 
 sufficiently aware of the weakness of the Royalists, who recom- 
 mended this wild step, and he actually went off to the hills. 
 But he found only a few Highlanders at Clova, 1 without the 
 appearance of an army, which he had promised himself, and was 
 easily induced to return to the camp with a party who had been 
 despatched in pursuit of him. 
 
 This excursion, which was called the Start, did not greatly 
 tend to increase confidence betwixt the young King and his 
 Presbyterian counsellors. The ceremony of the 
 coronation was performed with such solemnities as 
 the time admitted, but mingled with circumstances 
 which must have been highly disgusting to Charles. The con- 
 firmation of the Covenant was introduced as an essential part 
 of the solemnity; and the coronation was preceded by a na- 
 tional fast and humiliation, expressly held on account of the 
 sins of the Royal family. A suspected hand, that of the 
 Marquis of Argyle, placed an insecure crown on the head of 
 the son, 2 whose father he had been one of the principal instru- 
 ments in dethroning. 
 
 These were bad omens. But, on the other hand, the King 
 enjoyed more liberty than before ; most of the Engagers had 
 
 1 The village of Clova is situated in the northern extremity of Forfar- 
 shire, near to the source of the South Esk, in a glen of the Grampians, 
 along which that river flows in a south-eastward direction for upwards of 
 ten miles, issuing at length into a more open course in the romantic 
 vicinity of Cortachy Castle, a seat of the Earl of Airlie. 
 
 3 " Upon that occasion, the King, clad in a prince's robe, walked in 
 procession from the hall of the palace to the church, the spurs, sword 
 of state, sceptre, and crown being carried before him by the principal 
 nobility. It was remarkable, that upon this occasion the crown was 
 borne by the unhappy Marquis of Argyle, who was put to death in no 
 very legal manner immediately after the Restomtiou, using upon the 
 scaffold these remarkable words, ' I placed the crown on the King's head, 
 and in reward he brings mine to the block."' See History of the Regalia 
 of Gotland.
 
 532 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLV1 
 
 resumed their seats in Parliament ; and many Royalist officers 
 were received into the army. 
 
 Determined at this time not to be tempted to a disadvan- 
 tageous battle, the King, who assumed the command of the 
 army in person, took up a line in front of Stirling, having in 
 his front the river of Carron. Cromwell approached, but could 
 neither with prudence attack the Scots in their lines, nor find 
 means of inducing them to hazard a battle, unless on great ad- 
 vantage. After the armies had confronted each other for more 
 than a mouth, Cromwell despatched Colonel Overton into Fife, 
 to turn the left flank of the Scottish army, and intercept their 
 supplies. He was encountered near the town of Inverkeithing 
 by the Scots, commanded by Holborn and Brown. The first 
 of these officers behaved basely, and perhaps treacherously. 
 Brown fought well and bravely, but finally sustaining a total 
 defeat, was made prisoner, and afterwards died of grief. 
 
 The situation of the main Scottish army, under Charles, 
 became hazardous after this defeat, for their position was 
 rendered precarious by the footing which the English obtained 
 in the counties of Fife and Kinross, which enabled them 
 to intercept the King's supplies and communioations from the 
 north. In this distressed situation Charles adopted a bold and 
 decisive measure. He resolved to transfer the war from Scot- 
 land to England and suddenly raising his camp, he moved to 
 the south-westward by rapid marches, hoping to rouse his 
 friends in England, to arms, before Cromwell could overtake 
 him. But the Cavaliers of England were now broken and 
 dispirited, and were, besides, altogether unprepared for this hasty 
 invasion, which seemed rather the effect of despair than the 
 result of deliberate and settled resolution. The Presbyterians, 
 though rather inclined to the Royal cause, were still less dis- 
 posed to hazard a junction with him, until terms of mutual 
 accommodation could be settled. They were divided and 
 uncertain, while the republicans were resolved and active. 
 
 The English militia assembled under Lambert to oppose 
 
 Charles in front, and Cromwell followed close in his rear, to 
 
 take every advantage that could offer. The Scots reached the 
 
 city of Worcester without much opposition, where 
 
 3 *\|JJ S 1 P *' the militia, commanded by Lambert, and the regu- 
 lar forces under Cromwell, attacked the Royalists 
 with a force double their number. Clarendon and other
 
 1 65 1 BATTLE OF WORCESTER 533 
 
 English authors represent the Scottish army as making little 
 resistance. Cromwell, on the contrary, talks of the battle of 
 Worcester, in his peculiar phraseology, as " a stiff business a 
 very glorious mercy as stiff a contest as he had ever beheld." 
 But, well or ill disputed, the day was totally lost. Three 
 thousand men were slain in the field, ten thousand were taken, 
 and such of them as survived their wounds, and the horrors of 
 overcrowded jails, were shipped off to the plantations as slaves. 
 
 Charles, after beholding the ruin of his cause, and having 
 given sufficient proofs of personal valour, escaped from the field, 
 and concealed himself in obscure retreats, under various dis- 
 guises. At one time he was obliged to hide himseli in the 
 boughs of a spreading oak-tree ; hence called the Royal Oak. 
 At another time he rode before a lady, Mrs. Lane, in the qua- 
 lity of a groom ; and in this disguise passed through a part of 
 the Parliament forces. After infinite fatigue, many romantic 
 adventures, and the most imminent risk of discovery, he at 
 length escaped by sea, and for eight years continued to wander 
 from one foreign court to another, a poor, neglected, and in- 
 sulted adventurer, the claimant of thrones which he seemed 
 destined never to possess. 
 
 The defeat at Worcester was a deathblow to the resistance 
 of the King's party in Scotland. The Parliament, driven from 
 Stirling to the Highlands, endeavoured in vain to assemble 
 new forces. The English troops, after Cromwell's departure, 
 were placed under the command of General Monk, who now 
 began to make a remarkable figure in those times. He was a 
 gentleman of good birth, had been in arms for the King's ser- 
 vice, but being made prisoner, had finally embraced the party 
 of the Parliament, and fought for them in Ireland. He was 
 accounted a brave and skilful commander, totally free from the 
 spirit of fanaticism so general in the army of Cromwell, and a 
 man of deep sagacity, and a cold reserved temper. Under 
 Monk's conduct, seconded by that of Overton, Alured, and 
 other Parliamentary officers, the cities, castles, and fortresses of 
 Scotland were reduced one after another. The partial resist- 
 ance of the wealthy seaport of Dundee, in particular, waa 
 punished with the extremities of fire and sword, 
 so that Montrose, Aberdeen, and St. Andrews be- 
 came terrified, and surrendered without opposition. 
 
 The castle of Dunottar, in Kincardineshire, the hereditary
 
 534 TALKS OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLVT 
 
 fortress of the Earls Marischal, made an honourable defence 
 under George Ogilvy of Barras. It is situated upon a rock, 
 almost separated from the land by a deep ravine on the one side, 
 and overhanging the ocean on the other. 1 In this strong fortress 
 the Honours of Scotland, as they were called, had been deposited 
 after the battle of Dunbar. These were the crown, sceptre, 
 and sword of state, the symbols of Scottish sovereignty, which 
 were regarded by the nation with peculiar veneration. The 
 terror was great lest pledges, with which the national honour 
 was so intimately connected, should fall into the hands of 
 foreign schismatics and republicans. On the other hand, the 
 English, ardently desirous to possess themselves of these tro- 
 phies (the rather that they had formed a disproportioned idea 
 of their intrinsic value), besieged the castle closely, and block- 
 aded it by sea and land. As provisions began to fail, the 
 governor foresaw that further defence must speedily become 
 impossible ; and, with the assistance of Mr. Granger, minister 
 of Kinneff, he formed a stratagem for securing the ancient and 
 venerable regalia from the threatened dishonour. The first 
 preparation was to spread a report that these national treasures 
 had been carried abroad by Sir John Keith, a younger son of 
 the Earl Marischal, ancestor of the family of Kintore. Mrs. 
 Granger, the minister's wife, was the principal agent in the 
 subsequent part of the scheme. Having obtained of the Eng- 
 lish general the permission to bring out of the castle some 
 hards (or bundles) of lint, which she said was her property, 
 she had the courage and address to conceal the regalia within 
 the hards of lint, and carried them boldly through the English 
 camp, at the risk of much ill-usage, had she been discovered in 
 an attempt to deprive the greedy soldiery of their prey. Mrs. 
 Granger played her part so boldly, that she imposed on the 
 general himself, who courteously saluted her, and helped her 
 to mount on horseback as she left the encampment, little 
 guessing with what a valuable part of his expected booty she 
 was loaded. Arriving with her precious charge at Kinneff, 
 the minister buried the relics of royalty under the pulpit of 
 his church, and visited them from time to time, in order to 
 wrap them in fresh packages, and preserve them from injury. 
 Suspicion attached to the Governor of Dunottar; and when 
 
 1 On the eastern coast, nigh to the town of Stonehaven, and seventeen 
 miles south of Aberdeen.
 
 1651 HIGHLANDERS' RESISTANCE 535 
 
 the castle was finally surrendered, for want of provisions, he was 
 rigorously dealt with, imprisoned, and even tortured, to make 
 him discover where the regalia were concealed. His lady, who 
 had been active in the stratagem, was subjected to similar sever- 
 ities, as were also the minister of KinnefF and his courageous 
 spouse. All, however, persisted in keeping the secret. Re- 
 wards were distributed, after the Restoration, to those who had 
 been concerned in saving the Honours, but they do not appear 
 to have been very accurately accommodated to the merits of 
 the parties. Sir John Keith, whose name had only been used 
 in the transaction as a blind, to put the English on a wrong 
 scent, was created Earl of Kintore, and Ogilvy was made a 
 baronet; but the courageous minister, with his heroic wife, 
 were only rewarded with a pension in money. 
 
 The towns and castles of Scotland being thus reduced, the 
 national resistance was confined to a petty warfare, carried on 
 by small bands, who lurked among the mountains and morasses, 
 and took every advantage which these afforded to annoy the 
 English troops, and cut off small parties, or straggling soldiers. 
 These were called Mosstroopers, from a word formerly ap- 
 propriated to the freebooters of the Border. But the English, 
 who observed a most rigid discipline, were not much in 
 danger of suffering from such desultory efforts ; and as they 
 seldom spared the prisoners taken in the skirmishes, the Scots 
 found themselves obliged to submit, for the first time, to an 
 invader more fortunate than all the preceding rulers of Eng- 
 land. Their resistance ceased, but their hatred watched for a 
 safer opportunity of vengeance. The Highlanders, however, 
 being strong in the character of the country and its inhabit- 
 ants, continued refractory to the English authority, and if the 
 soldiery ventured to go through the country alone, or in small 
 parties, they were sure to be surprised and slain, without its 
 being possible to discover the actors. The English officers 
 endeavoured to obtain from the neighbouring chiefs, who pre- 
 tended complete ignorance of these transactions, such redress 
 as the case admitted of, but their endeavours were in general 
 ingeniously eluded. 
 
 For example, an English garrison had lost cattle, horses, 
 and even men, by the incursion of a Highland clan who had 
 their residence in the neighbouring mountains, so that the 
 incensed governor demanded peremptorily, that the actors of
 
 536 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLVJ 
 
 these depredations should be delivered up to him to suffer 
 punishment. The chief was in no condition to resist, but 
 was not the less unwilling to deliver up the men actually 
 concerned in the creagh, who were probably the boldest, or, as 
 it was then termed, the prettiest, men of his name. To get 
 easily out of the dilemma, he is said to have selected two or 
 three old creatures, past all military service, whom he sent down 
 to the English commandant, as if they had been the caterans, 
 or plunderers, whom he wanted. The English officer caused 
 them instantly to be hanged in terrorem, which was done 
 accordingly, no protestations which they might make of their 
 innocence being understood or attended to. It is to be hoped 
 that other refractory chiefs found more justifiable means of 
 preserving their authority. 
 
 In the meantime, Oliver Cromwell accomplished an extra- 
 ordinary revolution in England, which I can here but barely 
 touch upon. He and his council of officers, who had so often 
 offered violence to the Parliament, by excluding from the 
 sittings such members as were obnoxious to them, now resolved 
 altogether to destroy the very remnant of this body. For this 
 purpose Cromwell came to the house while it was sitting, told 
 them, in a violent manner, that they were no longer a Parlia- 
 ment, and, upbraiding several individuals with injurious names, 
 he called in a body of soldiers, and commanded one of them to 
 " take away that bauble," meaning the silver mace, which is 
 an emblem of the authority of the House. Then turning the 
 members forcibly out of the hall, he locked the doors, and thus 
 dissolved that memorable body, which had made war against 
 the King, defeated, dethroned, and beheaded him, yet sunk at 
 once under the authority of one of their own members, and 
 an officer of their own naming, who had, in the beginning of 
 these struggles, been regarded as a man of very mean consider- 
 ation. Oliver Cromwell now seized the supreme power into 
 his hands, with the title of Protector of the Republics of 
 Great Britain and Ireland, under which he governed these 
 islands till his death, with authority more ample than was ever 
 possessed by any of their lawful monarchs. 
 
 The confusion which the usurpation of Cromwell was expected 
 to have occasioned in England, determined the Royalists to 
 attempt a general rising, in which it was expected that great 
 part of the Highland chieftains would join. The successes
 
 1651-2 GLENCAIRN'S RISING 537 
 
 of Montrose were remembered, although it seems to have 
 been forgotten that it was more his own genius than his 
 means, that enabled him to attain them. The Earl of Glen- 
 cairn was placed by the King's commission at the head of the 
 insurrection ; he was joined by the Earl of Athole, by the son 
 of the heroic Montrose, by Lord Lorn, the son of the Marquis 
 of Argyle, and other nobles. A romantic young English 
 cavalier, named Wogan, joined this insurgent army at the head 
 of a body of eighty horse, whom he brought by a toilsome and 
 dangerous march through England and the Lowlands of Scot- 
 land. This gallant troop was frequently engaged with the 
 Republican forces, and particularly with a horse regiment, 
 called " the Brazen Wall," from their never having been broken. 
 Wogan defeated, however, a party of these invincibles, but 
 received several wounds, which, though not at first mortal, 
 became so for want of good surgeons ; and thus, in an obscure 
 skirmish, ended the singular career of an enthusiastic Royalist. 
 
 The army under Glencairn increased to five thousand men, 
 numbers much greater than Montrose usually commanded. 
 Their leader, however, though a brave and accomplished noble- 
 man, seems to have been deficient in military skill, or, at any 
 rate, in the art of securing the good-will and obedience of the 
 various chiefs and nobles who acted under him. It was in 
 vain that Charles, to reconcile their feuds, sent over, as their 
 commander -in -chief, General Middleton, who, after having 
 fought against Montrose in the cause of the Covenant, had at 
 length become an entire Royalist, and was trusted as such. 
 But his military talents were not adequate to surmount the 
 objections which were made to his obscure origin, and the diffi- 
 culties annexed to his situation. 
 
 General Middleton met with but an indifferent welcome from 
 the Highland army, as the following scene, which took place 
 at an entertainment given by him on taking the command, will 
 show. Glencairn had spoken something in praise of the men 
 he had assembled for the King's service, especially the High- 
 landers. In reply, up started Sir George Munro, an officer of 
 some reputation, but of a haughty and brutal temper, and who, 
 trained in the wars of Germany, despised all irregular troops, 
 and flatly swore that the men of whom the Earl thus boasted, 
 were a pack of thieves and robbers, whose place he hoped to 
 supply with very different soldiers. Glengarry, n, Highland
 
 538 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLVI 
 
 chief who was present, arose to resent this insolent language ; 
 but Glencairn, preventing him, replied to Munro, " You are a 
 base liar ! these men are neither thieves nor robbers, but 
 gallant gentlemen, and brave soldiers." 
 
 In spite of Middlcton's attempts to preserve peace, this alter- 
 cation led to a duel. They fought on horseback, first with 
 pistols, and then with broadswords. Sir George Munro 
 having received a wound on the bridle hand, called to the Earl 
 that he was unable to command his horse, and therefore desired 
 to continue the contest on foot. " You base churl," answered 
 Glencairn, " I will match you either on foot or on horseback." 
 Both dismounted, and encountered fiercely on foot, with their 
 broadswords, when Munro received a wound across his fore- 
 head, from which the blood flowed so fast into his eyes, that 
 he could not see to continue the combat. Glencairn was about 
 to thrust his enemy through the body, when the Earl's servant 
 struck up the point of his master's sword, saying, " You have 
 enough of him, my Lord you have gained the day." Glen- 
 cairn, still in great anger, struck the intrusive peacemaker 
 across the shoulders, but returned to his quarters, where he was 
 shortly after laid under arrest, by order of the general. 
 
 Ere this quarrel was composed, one Captain Livingstone, a 
 friend of Munro's, debated the justice of the question betwixt 
 the leaders so keenly with a gentleman, named Lindsay, that 
 they must needs fight a duel also, in which Lindsay killed 
 Livingstone on the spot. General Middleton, in spite of Glen- 
 cairn's intercessions, ordered Lindsay to be executed by martial 
 law, on which Glencairn left the army with his own immediate 
 followers, and soon after returning to the Lowlands, made peace 
 with the English. His example was followed by most of the 
 Lowland nobles, who grew impatient of long marches, Highland 
 quarters, and obscure skirmishes, which were followed by no 
 important result. 
 
 Middleton still endeavoured to keep the war alive, although 
 Cromwell had sent additional forces into the Highlands. At 
 length he sustained a defeat at Loch Garry, 26th July 1654, 
 after which his army dispersed, and he himself retired abroad. 
 The English forces then marched through the Highlands, and 
 compelled the principal clans to submit to the authority of the 
 Protector. And here I may give you an account of one 
 individual chieftain, of great celebrity at that time, since you
 
 1652-4 EVAN DHTT 639 
 
 will learn better the character of that primitive race of men 
 from personal anecdotes than from details of obscure and petty 
 contests, fought at places with unpronounceable names. 
 
 Evan Cameron of Lochiel, chief of the numerous and powerful 
 clan of Cameron, was born in 1629. He was called Mac- 
 Connuill Dhu (the son of Black Donald), from the patronymic 
 that marked his descent, and Evan Dhu, or Black Evan, a 
 personal epithet derived from his own complexion. Young 
 Lochiel was bred up under the directions of the Marquis of 
 Argyle, and was in attendance on that nobleman, who regarded 
 him as a hostage for the peaceable behaviour of his clan. It 
 is said, that in the civil war the young chief was converted to 
 the side of the King by the exhortations of Sir Robert Spottis- 
 wood, then in prison at St. Andrews, and shortly afterwards 
 executed, as we have elsewhere noticed, for his adherence to 
 Montrose. 
 
 Evan Dhu, having embraced these principles, was one of the 
 first to join in the insurrection of 1652, of which I have just 
 given a short account. During the best part of two years he 
 was always with his clan, in the very front of battle, and 
 behaved gallantly in the various skirmishes which took place. 
 He was compelled, however, on one occasion, to withdraw from 
 the main body, on learning that the English were approaching 
 Lochaber, with the purpose of laying waste the country of 
 Lochiel. He hastened thither to protect his own possessions, 
 and those of his clan. 
 
 On returning to his estates, Lochiel had the mortification to 
 find that the English had established a garrison at Inverlochy, 
 with the purpose of reducing to submission the Royalist clans 
 in the neighbourhood, particularly his own, and the MacDonalds 
 of Glengarry and Keppoch. He resolved to keep a strict 
 watch on their proceedings, and dismissing the rest of his 
 followers, whom he had not the means of maintaining without 
 attracting attention to his motions, he lay in the woods with 
 about fifty chosen men, within a few miles of Inverlochy. 
 
 It was the constant policy of Cromwell and his officers, both 
 in Ireland and Scotland, to cut down and destroy the forests 
 in which the insurgent natives found places of defence and 
 concealment. In conformity with this general rule, the com- 
 mandant of Inverlochy embarked three hundred men in two 
 light -armed vessels, with directions to disembark at a place
 
 540 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLVI 
 
 called Achdelew, for the purpose of destroying Lochiel's cattle 
 and felling his woods. Lochiel, who watched their motions 
 closely, saw the English soldiers come ashore, one-half having 
 hatchets and other tools as a working party, the other half 
 under arms, to protect their operations. Though the difference 
 of numbers was so great, the chieftain vowed that he would 
 make the red soldier (so the English were called from their 
 uniform) pay dear for every bullock or tree which he should 
 destroy on the black soldier's property (alluding to the dark 
 colour of the tartan, and perhaps to his own complexion). He 
 then demanded of some of his followers who had served under 
 Montrose, whether they had ever seen the Great Marquis 
 encounter with such unequal numbers. They answered, they 
 could recollect no instance of such temerity. " We will fight, 
 nevertheless," said Evan Dhu, " and if each of us kill a man, 
 which is no mighty matter, I will answer for the event." 
 That his family might not be destroyed in so doubtful an 
 enterprise, he ordered his brother Allan to be bound to a tree, 
 meaning to prevent his interference in the conflict. But 
 Allan prevailed on a little boy, who was left to attend him, to un- 
 loose the cords, and was soon as deep in the fight as Evan himself. 
 
 The Camerons, concealed by the trees, advanced so close on 
 the enemy as to pour on them an unexpected and destructive 
 shower of shot and arrows, which slew thirty men ; and ere 
 they could recover from their surprise, the Highlanders were 
 in the midst of them, laying about them with incredible fury 
 with their ponderous swords and axes. After a gallant resistance, 
 the mass of the English began to retire towards their vessels, 
 when Evan Dhu commanded a piper and a small party to go 
 betwixt the enemy and their barks, and then sound his pibroch 
 and war-cry, till their clamour made it seem that there was 
 another body of Highlanders in ambush to cut off their retreat. 
 The English, driven to fury and despair by this new .alarm, 
 turned back, like brave men, upon the first assailants, and, if 
 the working party bad possessed military weapons, Lochiel 
 might have had little reason to congratulate himself on the 
 result of this audacious stratagem. 
 
 He himself had a personal rencontre, strongly characteristic 
 of the ferocity of the times. The chief was singled out by an 
 English officer of great personal strength, and, as they were 
 separated from the general strife, they fought in single combat
 
 1652-4 EVAN DHU 641 
 
 for some time. Lochiel was dexterous enough to disarm th 
 Englishman ; but his gigantic adversary suddenly closed on him, 
 and in the struggle which ensued both fell to the ground, the 
 officer uppermost. He was in the act of grasping at his sword, 
 which had fallen near the place where they lay in deadly 
 struggle, and was naturally extending his neck in the same 
 direction, when the Highland chief, making a desperate effort, 
 grasped his enemy by the collar, and snatching with his teeth 
 at the bare and outstretched throat, he seized it as a wild-cat 
 might have done, and kept his hold so fast as to tear out the 
 windpipe. The officer died in this singular manner. Lochiel 
 was so far from disowning, or being ashamed of this extraor- 
 dinary mode of defence, that he was afterwards heard to say, it 
 was the sweetest morsel he had ever tasted. 
 
 When Lochiel, thus extricated from the most imminent 
 danger, was able to rejoin his men, he found they had not only 
 pursued the English to the beach, but even into the sea, cutting 
 and stabbing whomsoever they could overtake. He himself 
 advanced till he was chin-deep, and observing a man on board 
 one of the armed vessels take aim at him with a musket, he 
 dived under the water, escaping so narrowly that the bullet 
 grazed his head. Another marksman was foiled by the affection 
 of the chief's foster-brother, who threw himself betwixt the 
 Englishman and the object of his aim, and was killed by the 
 ball designed for his lord. 
 
 Having cut off a second party, who ventured to sally from 
 the fort, and thus, as he thought, sufficiently chastised the 
 garrison of Inverlochy, Lochiel again joined Middle ton, but was 
 soon recalled to Lochaber, by new acts of devastation. Leaving 
 most of his men with the Royalist general, Evan Dhu returned 
 with such speed and secrecy, that he again surprised a strong 
 party when in the act of felling his woods, and assaulting them 
 suddenly, killed on the spot a hundred men, and all the officers, 
 driving the rest up to the very walls of the garrison. 
 
 Middleton's army being disbanded, it was long ere Lochiel 
 could bring himself to accept of peace from the hands of the 
 English. He continued to harass them by attacks on detached 
 parties who straggled from the fort, on the officers who went 
 out into the woods in hunting-parties, on the engineer officers 
 who were sent to survey the Highlands, of whom he made a 
 large party prisoners, and confined them in a desolate island, on
 
 542 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLV1 
 
 a small lake called Loch Ortuigg. By such exploits he rendered 
 himself so troublesome, that the English were desirous to have 
 peace with him on any moderate terms. Their overtures were 
 at first rejected, Evan Dhu returning for answer, that he would 
 not abjure the King's authority, even although the alternative 
 was to be his living and dying in the condition of an exile and 
 outlaw. But when it was hinted to him that no express 
 renunciation of the King's authority would be required, and that 
 he was only desired to live in peace under the existing govern- 
 ment, the chief made his submission to the existing powers 
 with much solemnity. 
 
 Lochiel came down on this occasion at the head of his whole 
 clan in arms, to the garrison of Inverlochy. The English forces 
 being drawn up in a line opposite to them, the Camerons laid 
 down their arms in the name of King Charles, and took them 
 up again in that of the States, without any mention of Crom- 
 well, or any disowning of the King's authority. In consequence 
 of this honourable treaty, the last Scotsman who maintained 
 the cause of Charles Stewart submitted to the authority of the 
 republic. 
 
 It is related of this remarkable chieftain, that he slew with 
 his own hand the last wolf that was ever seen in the Highlands 
 of Scotland. Tradition records another anecdote of him. Being 
 benighted, on some party for the battle or the chase, Evan Dhu 
 laid himself down with his followers to sleep in the snow. As 
 he composed himself to rest, he observed that one of his sous, 
 or nephews, had rolled together a great snow-ball, on which he 
 deposited his head. Indignant at what he considered as a 
 mark of effeminacy, he started up and kicked the snow-ball from 
 under the sleeper's head, exclaiming, "Are you become so 
 luxurious that you cannot sleep without a pillow ?" 
 
 After the accession of James II., Lochiel came to court to 
 obtain pardon for one of his clan, who, being in command of a 
 party of Camerons, had fired by mistake on a body of Athole 
 men, and killed several. He was received with the most hon- 
 ourable distinction, and his request granted. The King desiring 
 to make him a knight, asked the chieftain for his own sword, in 
 order to render the ceremony still more peculiar. Lochiel had 
 ridden up from Scotland, being then the only mode of travelling, 
 and a constant rain had so rusted his trusty broadsword, that 
 at the moment no man could have unsheathed it. Lochiel,
 
 EVAN DHU 543 
 
 affronted at the idea which the courtiers might conceive from 
 his not being able to draw his own sword, burst into tears. 
 
 " Do not regard it, my faithful friend," said King James, 
 with ready courtesy " your sword would have left the scabbard 
 of itself had the Royal cause required it." 
 
 With that he bestowed the intended honour with his own 
 sword, which he presented to the new knight as soon as the 
 ceremony was performed. 
 
 Sir Evan Dhu supported the cause of the Stewart family, 
 for the last time, and with distinguished heroism, in the battle 
 of Killiecrankie. After that civil strife was ended, he grew old 
 in peace, and survived until 1719, aged about ninety, and so 
 much deprived of his strength and faculties, that this once 
 formidable warrior was fed like an infant, and like an infant 
 rocked in a cradle. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII 
 
 Administration of Public Justice in Scotland, under Cromwell Heavy 
 Taxes imposed by him Church Affairs Trials for Witclicrafl 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGN. France: Louis XIV. 
 16551658 
 
 WE will now take a general glance of Scotland, reduced as the 
 country was to temporary submission to Cromwell, whose power 
 there and elsewhere was founded upon military usurpation only. 
 He built strong citadels at Leith, Ayr, Inverness, and Glasgow. 
 Eighteen garrisons were maintained throughout the kingdom, 
 and a standing army of ten thousand men kept the country in 
 subjection. Monk, so often mentioned, commanded this army, 
 and was, besides, member of a Council of State, to whom the 
 executive government was committed. Lord Broghill was 
 President of this body, and out of nine members two only, 
 Swiuton and Lockhart, were natives of Scotland. 
 
 To regulate the administration of public justice, four English, 
 and three Scottish judges, were appointed to hear causes, and 
 to make circxuts for that purpose. The English judges, it may 
 be supposed, were indifferently versed in the law of Scotland ; 
 but they distributed justice with an impartiality to which the
 
 544 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLVII 
 
 Scottish nation had been entirely a stranger, and which ceased 
 to be experienced from the native judges after the Restoration. 
 The peculiar rectitude of the men employed by Cromwell being 
 pointed out to a learned judge, in the beginning of the next 
 century, his lordship composedly answered, " Devil thank them 
 for their impartiality ! a pack of kinless loons for my part, 
 I can never see a cousin or friend in the wrong." 
 
 This shameful partiality in the Scottish courts of justice 
 revived, as just noticed, with the Restoration, when the judges 
 were to be gained, not only by the solicitation of private friends, 
 and by the influence of kinsfolk, but by the interference of persons 
 in power, and the application of downright bribery. 
 
 In point of taxation, Oliver Cromwell's Scottish government 
 was intolerably oppressive, since he appears to have screwed 
 out of that miserable country an assessment of 10,000 per 
 month, which, even when gradually diminished to 72,000 
 yearly, was paid with the utmost difficulty. Some alleviation 
 was indeed introduced by the circulation of the money with 
 which England paid her soldiers and civil establishment, which 
 was at one time calculated at half a million yearly, and was 
 never beneath the moiety of that sum. 
 
 With regard to the Presbyterian Church, Cromwell pru- 
 dently foresaw, that the importance of the preachers would gra- 
 dually diminish if they were permitted to abuse each other, but 
 prevented from stirring up their congregations to arms. They 
 continued to be rent asunder by the recent discord, which had 
 followed upon the Bang's death. The majority were Resolu- 
 tionists, who owned the King's title, and would not be prohibited 
 from praying for him at any risk. The Remonstrants, who had 
 never been able to see any sufficient reason for embracing the 
 cause, or acknowledging the right, of Charles the Second, yielded 
 obedience to the English government, and disowned all notice 
 of the King in their public devotions. The Independents 
 treated both with contemptuous indifference, and only imposed 
 on them the necessity of observing toleration towards each other. 
 
 But though divided into different classes, Presbyterianism 
 continued on the whole predominant The temper of the 
 Scottish nation seemed altogether indisposed to receive any of 
 the various sects which had proved so prolific in England. 
 The quiet and harmless Quakers were the only sectaries who 
 gained some proselytes of distinction. Independents of other
 
 1655-8 CHURCH AFFAIRS 545 
 
 denominations made small progress, owing to the vigilance 
 with which the Presbyterian clergy maintained the unity of 
 the Church. 
 
 Even Cromwell was compelled to show deference to the pre- 
 vailing opinions in favour of Presbytery in Scotland, though 
 contrary to his principles as an Independent. He named a 
 commission of about thirty ministers from the class of Remon- 
 strators, and declared that, without certificates from three or 
 four of these select persons, no minister, though he might be 
 called to a church, should enjoy a stipend. This put the keys 
 of the Church (so far as emolument was concerned) entirely 
 into the hands of the Presbyterians ; and it may be presumed, 
 that such of the Commissioners as acted (for many declined the 
 office, thinking the duties of the Ecclesiastical Commission too 
 much resembled the domination of Episcopacy) took care to 
 admit no minister whose opinions did not coincide with their 
 own. The sectaries who were concerned in civil affairs were 
 also thwarted and contemned ; and on the whole, in spite of 
 the victories of the Independents in the field, their doctrines 
 made little progress in Scotland. 
 
 During the four years which ensued betwixt the final cessa- 
 tion of the Civil War, by the dispersion of the Royalist army, 
 and the Restoration of Monarchy, there occurred no public 
 event worthy of notice. The spirit of the country was depressed 
 and broken. The nobles, who hitherto had yielded but im- 
 l>erfect obedience to their native monarchs, were now compelled 
 to crouch under the rod of an English usurper. Most of them 
 retired to their country seats, or castles, and lived in obscurity, 
 enjoying such limited dominion over their vassals as the neigh- 
 bourhood of the English garrisons permitted them to retain. 
 These, of course, precluded all calling of the people to arms, 
 and exercise of the privilege, on the part of the barons, of 
 making open war on each other. 
 
 Thus far the subjection of the country was of advantage to 
 the tenantry and lower classes, who enjoyed more peace and 
 tranquillity during this period of national subjugation than had 
 been their lot during the civil wars. But the weight of 
 oppressive taxes, collected by means of a foreign soldiery, and 
 the general sense of degradation arising from the rule of a 
 foreign power, counterbalanced for the time the diminution of 
 feudal oppression. 
 
 35
 
 546 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLVII 
 
 In the absence of other matter, I may here mention a subject 
 which is interesting, as peculiarly characteristic of the manners of 
 Scotland. I mean the frequent recurrence of prosecutions for 
 witchcraft, which distinguishes this period. 
 
 Scripture refers more than once to the existence of witches ; 
 and though divines have doubted concerning their nature and 
 character, yet most European nations have, during the darker 
 periods of their history, retained in their statutes laws founded 
 upon the text of Exodus, " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to 
 live." 1 The Reformers, although rejecting the miracles of the 
 Catholic Church, retained with tenacity the belief of the existence 
 of such sorceresses, and zealously enforced the penalties against 
 all unfortunate creatures whom they believed to fall under the 
 description of witches, wizards, or the like. The increase of 
 general information and common sense has, at a later period, 
 occasioned the annulling of those cruel laws in most countries 
 of Europe. It has been judiciously thought that, since the 
 Almighty has ceased to manifest His own power by direct and 
 miraculous suspension of the ordinary laws of nature, it is in- 
 consistent to suppose that evil spirits should be left at liberty 
 in the present day to form a league with wretched mortals, and 
 impart to them supernatural powers of injuring or tormenting 
 others. And the truth of this reasoning has been proved by 
 the general fact, that where the laws against witchcraft have 
 been abolished, witches are rarely heard of, or thought of, even 
 amongst the lowest vulgar. 
 
 But in the seventeenth century, the belief in this imaginary 
 crime was general, and the prosecutions, especially in Scotland, 
 were very frequent. James VI., who often turned the learning 
 he had acquired to a very idle use, was at the trouble to write 
 a treatise against witchcraft, as he composed another against 
 smoking tobacco ; and the Presbyterian clergy, however little 
 apt to coincide with that monarch's sentiments, gave full ac- 
 ceptation to his opinion on the first point of doctrine, and very 
 
 1 " In the Law of Moses, dictated by the Divinity himself, was an- 
 nounced a text, which, as interpreted literally, having been inserted into 
 the Criminal Code of all Christian nations, has occasioned much cruelty 
 and bloodshed, either from its tenor being misunderstood, or that, being 
 exclusively calculated for the Israelites, it made part of the judicial Mosaic 
 dispensation, and was abrogated, like the greater part of that law, by the 
 more benign and clement dispensation of the Gospel." Letteri on 
 Demonoloyy.
 
 1655-8 TRIALS FOB WITCHCRAFT 547 
 
 many persons were put to death as guilty of this imaginary 
 crime. 
 
 I must, however, observe that some of those executed for 
 witchcraft well deserved their fate. Impostors of both sexes 
 were found, who deluded credulous persons by pretending an 
 intercourse with supernatural powers, and furnished those who 
 consulted them with potions, for the purpose of revenging them- 
 selves on their enemies, which were in fact poisonous com- 
 pounds sure to prove fatal to those who partook of them. 
 
 Among many other instances, I may mention that of a lady 
 of high rank, the second wife of a northern earl, who, being 
 desirous of destroying her husband's eldest son by the former 
 marriage, in order that her own son might succeed to the 
 father's title and estate, procured drugs to effect her purpose 
 from a Highland woman, who pretended to be a witch or sor- 
 ceress. The fatal ingredients were mixed with ale, and set 
 aside by the wicked countess, to be given to her victim on the 
 first fitting opportunity. But Heaven disappointed her pur- 
 pose, and, at the same time, inflicted on her a dreadful punish- 
 ment. Her own son, for whose advantage she meditated this 
 horrible crime, returning fatigued and thirsty from hunting, 
 lighted by chance on this fatal cup of liquor, drank it without 
 hesitation, and died in consequence. The wretched mixer of 
 the poison was tried and executed ; but, although no one could 
 be sorry that the agent in such a deed was brought to punish- 
 ment, it ia clear she deserved death, not as a witch, but as one 
 who was an accomplice in murder by poison. 
 
 But most of the poor creatures who suffered death for witch- 
 craft were aged persons, usually unprotected females, living 
 alone, in a poor and miserable condition, and disposed, from 
 the peevishness of age and infirmity, to rail against or desire 
 evil, in their froward humour, to neighbours by whom they 
 were abused or slighted. When such unhappy persons had 
 unwittingly given vent to impotent anger in bad wishes or 
 imprecations, if a child fell sick, a horse became lame, a bullock 
 died, or any other misfortune chanced in the family against 
 which the ill-will had been expressed, it subjected the utterer 
 instantly to the charge of witchcraft, and was received by 
 judges and jury as a strong proof of guilt. If, in addition to 
 this, the miserable creature had, by the oddity of her manners, 
 the crossness of her temper, the habit of speaking to herself,
 
 548 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XI.VI! 
 
 or any other signs of the dotage which attends comfortless old 
 age and poverty, attracted the suspicions of her credulous 
 neighbours, she was then said to have been held and reputed 
 a witch, and was rarely permitted to escape being burnt to 
 death at the stake. 
 
 It was equally fatal for an aged person of the lower ranks, 
 if, as was frequently the case, she conceived herself to possess 
 any peculiar receipt or charm for curing diseases, either by the 
 application of medicines, of which she had acquired the secret, 
 or by repeating words, or using spells and charms, which the 
 superstition of the time supposed to have the power of 
 relieving maladies that were beyond the skill of medical 
 practitioners. 
 
 Such a person was accounted a white witch ; one who em- 
 ployed her skill for the benefit, not the harm, of her fellow- 
 creatures. But still she was a sorceress, and, as such, was 
 liable to be brought to the stake. A doctress of this kind was 
 equally exposed to a like charge, whether her patient died or 
 recovered ; and she was, according to circumstances, condemned 
 for using sorcery whether to cure or to kill. Her allegation 
 that she had received the secret from family tradition, or from 
 any other source, was not admitted as a defence ; and she was 
 doomed to death with as little hesitation for having attempted 
 to cure by mysterious and unlawful means, as if she had been 
 charged, as in the instance already given, with having assisted 
 to commit murder. 
 
 The following example of such a case is worthy of notice. 
 It rests on tradition, but is very likely to be true. An emi- 
 nent English judge was travelling the circuit when an old woman 
 was brought before him for using a spell to cure dimness 
 of sight, by hanging a clew of yarn round the neck of the 
 patient. Marvellous things were told by the witnesses of the 
 cures which this spell had performed on patients far beyond the 
 reach of ordinary medicine. The poor woman made no other 
 defence than by protesting, that if there was any witchcraft in 
 the ball of yarn, she knew nothing of it. It had been given 
 her, she said, thirty years before, by a young Oxford student, 
 for the cure of one of her own family, who having used it with 
 advantage for a disorder in her eyes, she had seen no harm in 
 lending it for the relief of others who laboured under similar 
 infirmity, or in accepting a small gratuity for doing so. Her
 
 1655-8 TRIALS FOR WITCHCRAFT 549 
 
 defence was little attended to by the jury ; but the judge was 
 much agitated. He asked the woman where she resided when 
 she obtained possession of this valuable relic. She gave the 
 name of a village, in which she had in former times kept a 
 petty alehouse. He then looked at the clew very earnestly, 
 and at length addressed the jury. " Gentlemen," he said, " we 
 are on the point of committing a great injustice to this poor old 
 woman ; and to prevent it, I must publicly confess a piece of 
 early folly, which does me no honour. At the time this poor 
 creature speaks of, I was at college, leading an idle and careless 
 life, which, had I not been given grace to correct it, must have 
 made it highly improbable that ever I should have attained my 
 present situation. I chanced to remain for a day and night in 
 this woman's alehouse, without having money to discharge my 
 reckoning. Not knowing what to do, and seeing her much 
 occupied with a child who had weak eyes, I had the meanness 
 to pretend that I could write out a spell that would mend her 
 daughter's sight, if she would accept it instead of her bill. The 
 ignorant woman readily agreed ; and I scrawled some figures 
 on a piece of parchment, and added two lines of nonsensical 
 doggerel, in ridicule of her credulity, and caused her to make it 
 up in that clew which has so nearly cost her her life. To 
 prove the truth of this, let the yarn be unwound, and you may 
 judge of the efficacy of the spell." The clew was unwound 
 accordingly ; and the following pithy couplet was found on the 
 enclosed bit of parchment 
 
 " The devil scratch out both thine eyes, 
 And spit into the holes likewise." 
 
 It was evident that those who were cured by such a spell, 
 must have been indebted to nature, with some assistance, per- 
 haps, from imagination. But the users of such charms were 
 not always so lucky as to light upon the person who drew 
 them up ; and doubtless many innocent and unfortunate crea- 
 tures were executed, as the poor alewife would have been, had 
 she not lighted upon her former customer in the unexpected 
 character of her judge. 
 
 Another old woman is said to have cured many cattle of the 
 murrain, by a repetition of a certain verse. The fee which she 
 required, was a loaf of bread and a silver penny ; and when she 
 was commanded to reveal the magical verses which wrought
 
 550 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLV11 
 
 such wonders, they were found to be the following jest on the 
 credulity of her customers : 
 
 " My loaf in my lap, and my penny in my puree, 
 Thou art never the better, and J never the worse." 
 
 It was not medicine only which witchery was supposed to 
 mingle with ; but any remarkable degree of dexterity in an art 
 or craft, whether attained by skill or industry, subjected those 
 who possessed it to similar suspicion. Thus it was a danger- 
 ous thing to possess more thriving cows than those of the 
 neighbourhood, though their superiority was attained merely 
 by paying greater attention to feeding and cleaning the animals. 
 It was often an article of suspicion, that a woman had spun 
 considerably more thread than her less laborious neighbours 
 chose to think could be accomplished by ordinary industry; 
 and, to crown these absurdities, a yeoman of the town of 
 Mailing, in Kent, was accused before a justice of peace as a 
 sorcerer, because he used more frequently than his companions 
 to hit the mark which he aimed at. This dexterity, and some 
 idle story of the archer's amusing himself with letting a fly 
 hum and buzz around him, convinced the judge that the poor 
 man's skill in his art was owing to the assistance of some imp 
 of Satan. So he punished the marksman severely, to the great 
 encouragement of archery, and as a wise example to all justices 
 of the peace. 
 
 Other charges, the most ridiculous and improbable, were 
 brought against those suspected of witchcraft. They were 
 supposed to have power, by going through some absurd and 
 impious ceremony, to summon to their presence the Author of 
 Evil, who appeared in some mean or absurd shape, and, in re- 
 turn for the invokers renouncing their redemption, gave them 
 the power of avenging themselves on their enemies ; which 
 privilege, with that of injuring and teasing their fellow- 
 creatures, was almost all they gained from their new master. 
 Sometimes, indeed, they were said to obtain from him the 
 power of flying through the air on broomsticks, when the Foul 
 Fiend gave public parties ; and the accounts given of the cere- 
 monies practised on such occasions are equally disgusting and 
 vulgar, totally foreign to any idea we can have of a spiritual 
 nature, and only fit to be invented and believed by the most 
 ignorant and brutal of the human species.
 
 1655-8 TRIALS FOR WITCHCRAFT 551 
 
 Another of these absurdities was, the belief that the evil 
 spirits would attend if they were invoked with certain profane 
 and blasphemous ceremonies, such as reading the Lord's Prayer 
 backwards, or the like ; and would then tell the future fortunes 
 of those who had raised them, as it was called, or inform them 
 what was become of articles which had been lost or stolen. 
 Stories are told of such exploits by grave authors, which are 
 to the full as ridiculous, and indeed more so, than anything 
 that is to be found in fairy tales, invented for the amusement 
 of children. And for all this incredible nonsense, unfortunate 
 creatures were imprisoned, tortured, and finally burnt alive, by 
 the sentence of their judges. 
 
 It is strange to find, that the persons accused of this imagi- 
 nary crime in most cases paved the way for their own condem- 
 nation, by confessing and admitting the truth of all the 
 monstrous absurdities which were charged against them by 
 their accusers. This may surprise you ; but yet it can be ac- 
 counted for. 
 
 Many of these poor creatures were crazy, and infirm in 
 mind as well as body ; and, hearing themselves charged with 
 such monstrous enormities by those whom they accounted 
 wise and learned, became half persuaded of their own guilt, 
 and assented to all the nonsensical questions which were put 
 to them. But this was not all Very many made these con- 
 fessions under the influence of torture, which was applied to 
 them with cruel severity. 
 
 It is true, the ordinary courts of justice in Scotland had not 
 the power of examining criminals under torture, a privilege 
 which was reserved for the Privy Council. But this was a 
 slight protection ; for witches were seldom tried before the 
 ordinary Criminal Courts, because the judges and lawyers, 
 though they could not deny the existence of a crime for which 
 the law had assigned a punishment, yet showed a degree of in- 
 credulity respecting witchcraft which was supposed frequently 
 to lead to the escape of those accused of this unpopular crime, 
 when in the management of professional persons. To avoid 
 the ordinary jurisdiction of the Justiciary, and other regular 
 criminal jurisdictions, the trial of witchcraft in the provinces 
 was usually brought before commissioners appointed by the 
 Privy Council. These commissioners were commonly country 
 gentlemen and clergymen, who, from ignorance on the one side,
 
 552 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLVI1 
 
 misdirected learning on the other, and bigotry on both, were as 
 eager in the prosecution as the vulgar could desire. By their 
 commission they had the power of torture, and employed it 
 unscrupulously, usually calling in to their assistance a witch- 
 finder ; a fellow, that is, who made money by pretending to have 
 peculiar art and excellence in discovering these offenders, and 
 who sometimes undertook to rid a parish or township of witches 
 at so much a-head, as if they had been foxes, wild-cats, or other 
 vermin. These detestable impostors directed the process of 
 the torture, which frequently consisted in keeping the aged and 
 weary beings from sleep, and compelling them to walk up and 
 down their prison, whenever they began to close their eyes, 
 and in running needles into their flesh, under pretence of dis- 
 covering a mark, which the witch-finders affirmed the devil had 
 impressed on their skin, in token that they were his property 
 and subjects. It is no wonder that wretched creatures, driven 
 mad by pain and want of sleep, confessed anything whatever 
 to obtain a moment's relief, though they were afterwards to die 
 for it. 
 
 But besides the imbecility of such victims, and the torture 
 to which they were subjected, shame and weariness of life often 
 caused their pleading guilty to accusations in themselves absurd 
 and impossible. You must consider that the persons accused 
 of witchcraft were almost always held guilty by the public and 
 by their neighbours, and .that if the court scrupled to condemn 
 them, it was a common thing for the mob to take the execu- 
 tion into their own hands, and duck the unhappy wretches to 
 death, or otherwise destroy them. The fear of such a fate 
 might determine many of the accused, even though they were 
 in their sound mind, and unconstrained by bodily torture, to 
 plead guilty at once, and rather lose their wretched life by the 
 sentence of the law, than expose themselves to the fury of the 
 prejudiced multitude. A singular story is told to this effect. 
 
 An old woman and her daughter were tried as witches at 
 Haddington. The principal evidence of the crime was that, 
 though miserably poor, the two females had contrived to look 
 " fresh and fair," during the progress of a terrible famine, which 
 reduced even the better classes to straits, and brought all in- 
 digent people to the point of starving ; while, during the uni- 
 versal distress, these two women lived on in their usual way, 
 and never either begged for assistance or seemed to suffer by
 
 1655-8 TRIALS FOR WITCHCRAFT 553 
 
 the general calamity. The jury were perfectly satisfied that 
 this could not take place by any natural means ; and, as the 
 accused persons, on undergoing the discipline of one Kincaid, a 
 witch-finder, readily admitted all that was asked about their 
 intercourse with the devil, the jury, on their confession, brought 
 them in guilty of witchcraft without hesitation. 
 
 The King's Advocate for the time (I believe Sir George 
 Mackenzie is named) was sceptical on the subject of witchcraft. 
 He visited the women in private, and urged them to tell the 
 real truth. They continued at first to maintain the story they 
 had given in their confession. But the Advocate, perceiving 
 them to be women of more sense than ordinary, urged upon 
 them the crime of being accessary to their own death, by per- 
 sisting in accusing themselves of impossibilities, and promised 
 them life and protection, providing they would unfold the true 
 secret which they used for their subsistence. The poor women 
 looked wistfully on each other, like people that were in per- 
 plexity. At length, the mother said, " You are very good, my 
 lord, and I daresay your power is very great, but you cannot 
 be of use to my daughter and me. If you were to set us at 
 liberty from the bar, you could not free us from the suspicion 
 of being witches. As soon as we return to our hut, we shall 
 be welcomed by the violence and abuse of all our neighbours, 
 who, if they do not beat our brains out, or drown us on the 
 spot, will retain hatred and malice against us, which will be 
 shown on every occasion, and make our life so miserable, that 
 we have made up our minds to prefer death at once." 
 
 " Do not be afraid of your neighbours," said the Advocate. 
 " If you will trust your secret with me, I will take care of you 
 for the rest of your lives, and send you to an estate of mine in 
 the north, where nobody can know anything of your history, 
 and where, indeed, the people's ideas are such, that, if they 
 even thought you witches, they would rather regard you with 
 fear and respect than hatred." 
 
 The women, moved by his promises, told him that, if he 
 would cause to be removed an old empty trunk which stood in 
 the corner of their hut, and dig the earth where he saw it had 
 been stirred, he would find the secret by means of whicli they 
 had been supported through the famine ; protesting to Heaven, 
 at the same time, that they were totally innocent of any un- 
 lawful arts, such as had been imputed to them, and which they
 
 554 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLVll 
 
 had confessed in their despair. Sir George Mackenzie hastened 
 to examine the spot, and found concealed in the earth two fir- 
 kins of salted snails, one of them nearly empty. On this strange 
 food the poor women had been nourished during the famine. 
 The Advocate was as good as his word ; and the story shows 
 how little weight is to be laid on the frequent confessions of the 
 party in cases of witchcraft. 
 
 As this story is only traditional, I will mention two others 
 of the same kind, to which I can give a precise date. 
 
 The first of these instances regards a woman of rank, much 
 superior to those who were usually accused of this imaginary 
 crime. She was sister of Sir John Henderson of Fordel, and 
 wife to the Laird of Pittardo, in Fife. Notwithstanding her 
 honourable birth and connections, this unfortunate matron was, 
 in the year 1649, imprisoned in the common jail of Edinburgh, 
 from the month of July till the middle of the month of De- 
 cember, when she was found dead, with every symptom of 
 poison. Undoubtedly the infamy of the charge, and the sense 
 that it must destroy her character and disgrace her family, was 
 the cause which instigated her to commit suicide. 
 
 The same sentiment which drove this poor lady to her death 
 was expressed by a female, young and handsome, executed at 
 Paisley in 1697, in the following short answer to some of her 
 friends, who were blaming her for not being sufficiently active 
 in defending herself upon her trial. " They have taken away 
 my character," she said, " and my life is not worth preserving." 
 
 But the most affecting instance of such a confession being 
 made, and persisted in to the last, by an innocent person, is 
 recorded by one who was a diligent collector of witch stories, 
 and a faithful believer in them. He says, that in the village 
 of Lauder, there was a certain woman accused of witchcraft, 
 who for a long time denied her guilt. At length when all her 
 companions in prison had been removed, and were appointed 
 for execution, and she herself about to be left to total solitude, 
 the poor creature became weary of life, and made a false con- 
 fession, avowing that she was guilty of certain facts, which, in 
 the opinion of the times, amounted to witchcraft. She, there- 
 fore, made it her petition that she should be put to death with 
 the others on the day appointed for their execution. Her 
 clergyman and others, on considering this young woman's par- 
 ticular case, entertained, fur once, some doubts that her coufcs-
 
 1655-8 TRIALS FOR WITCHCRAFT 556 
 
 sion was not sincere, and remonstrated strongly with her upon 
 the wickedness of causing her own death by a false avowal of 
 guilt. But as she stubbornly adhered to her confession, she 
 was condemned, and appointed to be executed with the rest, 
 as she had so earnestly desired. Being carried forth to the 
 place of execution, she remained silent during the first, second, 
 and third prayer, and then perceiving that there remained no 
 more but to rise and go to the stake, she lift up her body, and 
 with a loud voice cried out, " Now, all you that see me this 
 day, know that I am now to die as a witch, by my own con- 
 fession : and I free all men, especially the ministers and 
 magistrates, of the guilt of my blood. I take it wholly upon 
 myself my blood be upon my own head ; and, as I must make 
 answer to the God of Heaven presently, I declare I am as free 
 of witchcraft as any child ; but being delated by a malicious 
 woman, and put in prison under the name of a witch, dis- 
 owned by my husband and friends, and seeing no ground of 
 hope of my coming out of prison, or ever coming in credit 
 again, through the temptation of the devil I made up that con- 
 fession, on purpose to destroy my own life, being weary of it, 
 and choosing rather to die than live." And so died. 
 
 It was remarkable that the number of supposed witches 
 seemed to increase in proportion to the increase of punish- 
 ment. On the 22d of May 1650 the Scottish Parliament 
 named a committee for inquiry into the depositions of no less 
 than fifty-four witches, with power to grant such commissions 
 as we have already described, to proceed with their trial, con- 
 demnation, and execution. Supposing these dreaded sorcer- 
 esses to exist in such numbers, and to possess the powers of 
 injury imputed to them, it was to be expected, as Reginald 
 Scott expresses himself, that " there would neither be butter in 
 the churn, nor cow in the close, nor corn in the field, nor fair 
 weather without, nor health within doors." Indeed the extent 
 to which people indulged their horrors and suspicions was in 
 itself the proof of their being fanciful. If, in a small province, 
 or even a petty town, there had existed scores of people pos- 
 sessed of supernatural power, the result would be that the 
 laws of nature would have been liable to constant interruption. 
 
 The English judges appointed for Scotland in Cromwell's 
 time saw the cruelty and absurdity of witch-trials, and endea- 
 voured to put a stop to them ; but the thanks which they
 
 556 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLVII 
 
 received were only reflections on their principles of toleration 
 the benefit of which, in the opinion of the Scots, was extended, 
 by this lenity, not only to heretics of every denomination, 
 but even to those who worshipped the devil. Some went still 
 farther, and accused the sectaries of holding intercourse with 
 evil spirits in their devotions. This was particularly reported 
 and believed of the Quakers, the most simple and moral of all 
 dissenters from the Church. 
 
 Wiser and better views on the subject began to prevail in 
 the end of the seventeenth century, and capital prosecutions 
 for this imaginary crime were seen to decrease. The last 
 instance of execution for witchcraft took place in the remote 
 province of Sutherland in 1722, under the direction of an 
 ignorant provincial judge, who was censured by his superiors for 
 the proceeding. The victim was an old woman in her last 
 dotage, so silly that she was delighted to warm her wrinkled 
 hands at the fire which was to consume her; and who, while 
 they were preparing for her execution, repeatedly said, that so 
 good a blaze, and so many neighbours gathered round it, made 
 the most cheerful sight she had seen for many years ! l 
 
 The laws against witchcraft, both in England and Scotland, 
 were abolished ; and persons who pretend to fortune-telling, the 
 use of spells, or similar mysterious feats of skill, are now pun- 
 ished as common knaves and impostors. Since this has been 
 the case, no one has ever heard of witches or witchcraft, even 
 among the most ignorant of the vulgar; so that the crime 
 must have been entirely imaginary, since it ceased to exist so 
 soon as men ceased to hunt it out for punishment 
 
 1 " The last person who was prosecuted before the Lords of Justiciary 
 for witchcraft was Elspeth Rule, who was tried before Lord Anstruther 
 at the Dumfries circuit, on the 3d of May 1709. No special act of witch- 
 craft was charged against her ; the indictment was of a very general 
 nature, that the prisoner was habit and repute a witch, and that she had 
 used threatening expressions against persons at enmity with her, who 
 were afterwards visited with the loss of cattle, or the deatli of friends, 
 and one of whom ran mad. The jury by a majority of voices found these 
 articles proved, and the judge ordained the prisoner to be burned uu the 
 cheek, and to be banished Scotland for life." ARXOT.
 
 1658 CROMWELL'S GOVERNMENT 557 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII 
 
 CromwelCs System of Government his Death Richard Cromwell's 
 Accession to the Protectorate, and Retirement from it General 
 Monk Dissolution of the Long Parliament Proposal for the 
 Recall of the Exiled Stewarts The Restoration Character of 
 Charles II. 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGN. France: Louis XIV. 
 16581660 
 
 OLIVER CROMWELL, who, in the extraordinary manner I have 
 told you, raised himself to the supreme sovereignty of England, 
 Scotland, and Ireland, was a man of great talents, and, as has 
 been already said, not naturally of a severe or revengeful dis- 
 position. He made the kingdoms which he ruled formidable 
 to foreign powers ; and perhaps no government was ever more 
 respected abroad than that of the Lord Protector. 
 
 At home Cromwell had a very difficult task to perform, in 
 order to maintain his usurped authority. He was obliged on 
 several occasions, as has been successfully done in other coun- 
 tries by usurpers of his class, to convoke some kind of senate 
 or parliament, consisting of his own creatures, who might 
 appear to divide with him the power, and save him, in appear- 
 ance at least, the odium of governing by his sole authority. 
 But such was the spirit of the English nation, that whenever 
 Cromwell convoked a Parliament, though in a great measure 
 consisting of his own partisans, and though the rest were 
 studiously chosen as mean and ignorant persons, the instant 
 that they met they began to inquire into the ground of the 
 Protector's authority, and proposed measures which interfered 
 with his assumption of supreme power. 
 
 In addition to this, the various factions into which the 
 country was divided, all agreed in hating the usurped power 
 of the Protector, and were frequently engaged in conspiracies 
 against him, which were conceived and carried on not only by 
 Cavaliers and Presbyterians, but by Republicans, and even by 
 his own soldiers.
 
 558 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLVlll 
 
 Thus hard pressed on every side, the Protector displayed 
 the utmost sagacity in his mode of defending himself. On two 
 or three occasions, indeed, he held what he called High Courts 
 of Justice, by whose doom both Cavaliers and Presbyterians 
 suffered capital punishment for plots against his government. 
 But it was with reluctance Cromwell resorted to such severe 
 measures. His general policy was to balance parties against 
 each other, and make each of them desirous of the subsistence 
 of his authority, rather than run the risk of seeing it changed 
 for some other than their own. At great expense, and by 
 constant assiduity, he maintained spies in the councils of every 
 faction of the state ; and often the least suspected, and appa- 
 rently most vehement, among the hostile parties, were, in 
 private, the mercenary tools of Cromwell. 
 
 In the wandering court of Charles II., in particular, one of 
 the most noted cavaliers was Sir Richard "Willis, who had 
 fought bravely, and suffered much, in the cause both of the 
 late King and of his son. There was no man among the 
 Royalists who attended on Charles's person so much trusted 
 and honoured as this gentleman, who, nevertheless, enjoyed a 
 large pension from Cromwell, and betrayed to him what- 
 ever schemes were proposed for the restoration of the exiled 
 monarch. By this and similar intercourse, the Protector had 
 the means of preventing the numerous conspiracies against him 
 from coming to a head, and also of opposing the machinations 
 of one discontented party by means of the others. 
 
 It is believed, however, that, with all his art, the Protector 
 would not have been able to maintain his power for many 
 years. A people long accustomed to a free government were 
 generally incensed at being subjected to the unlimited authority 
 of one man, and the discontent became universal. It seemed 
 that, towards the conclusion of his life, Cromwell was nearly 
 at the end of his expedients ; and it is certain that his own 
 conduct then displayed an apprehension of danger which he 
 had never before exhibited. He became morose and melan- 
 choly, always wore secret armour under his ordinary dress, 
 never stirred abroad unless surrounded with guards, never 
 returned by the same road, nor slept above thrice in the same 
 apartment, from the dread of assassination. His health broke 
 down under these gloomy apprehensions ; and on the 3d of
 
 1658-9 RICHARD CROMWELL 559 
 
 September 1658 he died at the age of sixty. His death was 
 accompanied by a general and fearful tempest ; and by another 
 circumstance equally striking in those superstitious times, 
 namely, that he died on the day and month in which he had 
 gained his decisive victories at Dunbar and Worcester. 
 
 The sceptre, which Oliver had held with so firm a grasp, was 
 transferred to that of his son, Richard Cromwell ; while the 
 funeral of the deceased Protector was solemnised at an expense 
 superior far to what England had bestowed on the obsequies of 
 any of her kings. But this apparent transmission of Oliver's 
 authority to his son was only nominal. A Parliament, which 
 Richard assembled that they might vote him supplies, com- 
 menced an inquiry into the nature of the new Lord Protector's 
 title ; and a council of officers whom he convoked became 
 refractory, and assumed an authority which he dared not 
 dispute with them. These military despots compelled Richard 
 to dissolve the Parliament, and subsequently obliged him to 
 resign the office of Protector. He descended quietly 
 into humble life, burdened not only by many personal 
 debts but also by the demands of those who had 
 supplied the exorbitant expenses of his father's funeral, which 
 the State unworthily and meanly suffered to descend upon 
 him. 
 
 Richard Cromwell, removed from the dangers and the guilt 
 of power, lived a long and peaceable life, and died in 1712, at 
 the age of eighty-six. Two anecdotes respecting him are 
 worth mentioning. When he was obliged to retire abroad on 
 account of his debts, Richard Cromwell, travelling under a 
 borrowed name, was led, from curiosity, to visit Pezenas, a 
 pleasant town and castle in Languedoc. The proprietor was 
 the Prince of Conti, a French prince of the blood royal, who, 
 hearing an English traveller was in the palace, had the curiosity 
 to receive him, that he might learn the latest news from Eng- 
 land, which at this time astonished Europe by its frequent 
 changes of government. The French prince spoke to the 
 stranger of Oliver Cromwell as a wicked man, and a lawless 
 usurper of the government: but then he acknowledged his 
 deep sagacity, high talents, and courage in danger, and admired 
 the art and force with which he had subjected three kingdoms 
 to his own individual authority. " He knew how to command,"
 
 560 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLVIII 
 
 continued the prince, " and deserved to be obeyed. But what 
 has become of the poor poltroon, Richard the coward, the 
 dastard, who gave up, without a blow or struggle, all that his 
 father had gained 1 Have you any idea how the man could be 
 such a fool, and mean-spirited caitiff?" Poor Richard, glad to 
 remain unknown where he was so little esteemed, only replied, 
 "That the abdicated Protector had been deceived by those 
 in whom he most trusted, and to whom his father had shown 
 most kindness." He then took leave of the prince, who 
 did not learn till two days afterwards that he had addressed 
 so unpleasing a discourse to the person whom it principally 
 regarded. 
 
 The other anecdote is of a later date, being subsequent to 
 1705. Some lawsuit of importance required that Richard 
 Cromwell should appear in the King's Bench Court. The 
 judge who presided showed a generous deference to fallen 
 greatness, and to the mutability of human affairs. He received 
 with respect the man who had been once Sovereign of Eng- 
 land, caused a chair to be placed for him within the bar, and 
 requested him to be covered. When the counsel on the oppo- 
 site side began his speech, as if about to allude to Richard's 
 descent from the obnoxious Oliver, the judge checked him 
 with generous independence. " I will hear nothing on that 
 topic, sir," he said ; " speak to the merits of the cause before 
 us." After his appearance in court, Richard Cromwell's curi- 
 osity carried him to the House of Peers, where he stood below 
 the bar, looking around him, and making observations on the 
 alterations which he saw. A person, who heard a decent-look- 
 ing old man speaking in this way, said to him civilly, " It is 
 probably a long while, sir, since you have been in this house ?" 
 " Not since I sat in that chair," answered the old gentleman, 
 pointing to the throne, on which he had been, indeed, seated as 
 sovereign, when, more than fifty years before, he received the 
 addresses of both Houses of Parliament, on his succeeding to 
 his father in the supreme power. 
 
 To return to public affairs in London, where, after the ab- 
 dication of Richard, changes succeeded with as little per- 
 manence as the reflection of faces presented to a mirror, the 
 attempt of the officers of the army to establish a purely 
 military government was combated by the return to Par-
 
 1 659 MARCH OF MONK 561 
 
 liaraent of those republican members whom Oliver Cromwell 
 had expelled, and whom the common people, by a vulgar but 
 expressive nickname, now called the Rump Parliament. This 
 assembly, so called because it was the sitting part of that 
 which commenced the civil war, was again subjected to mili- 
 tary violence, and dissolved by General Lambert, who unques- 
 tionably designed in his own person to act the part of Oliver 
 Cromwell, though without either the talents or high reputation 
 of the original performer. But a general change had taken 
 place in the sentiments of the nation. 
 
 The public had been to a certain degree patient under the 
 government of Oliver, to whom it was impossible to deny all 
 the praise which belongs to firmness and energy; but they 
 saw with disgust these feeble usurpers, by whom his vigorous 
 government was succeeded, bustle amongst themselves, and 
 push each other from the rudder of the state, without consult- 
 ing the people at large. Remembering the quiet and peaceful 
 condition of the kingdom before the civil wars, when its kings 
 succeeded by hereditary right to a limited power, and when the 
 popular and monarchical branches of the constitution so judici- 
 ously balanced each other, that the whole British nation 
 looked back to the period as one of liberty, peace, and lawful 
 order ; and comparing this happy and settled state of public 
 affairs with the recent manner in which every successive faction 
 seized upon power when they could snatch it, and again yielded 
 it up to the grasp of another and stronger party, all men were 
 rilled with dissatisfaction. 
 
 Upon the whole, the thoughts of all the judicious part of the 
 nation were turned towards the exiled prince, and there was a 
 general desire to call him back to the exercise of the govern- 
 ment, an inclination which was only suppressed by the strong 
 hand of the armed fanatics. It was absolutely necessary that 
 some military force should be on foot in order to cope with 
 these warlike saints, as they called themselves, before the 
 general disposition of the kingdom could have room or freedom 
 to express itself. 
 
 As it was the disturbances in Scotland which first shook 
 the throne of Charles the First, so it was from the same 
 country that the movement took place which eventually 
 replaced on the throne his Bon and heir. We have already 
 
 36
 
 562 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XI.V1H 
 
 iioticed that the kingdom of Scotland had been finally sub- 
 dued by the efforts of General Monk, who afterwards governed 
 it during the protectorate of Cromwell, and in obedience to his 
 authority. 
 
 Monk was a man of a grave, reserved, and sagacious character, 
 who had gained general esteem by the manner in which he 
 managed Scottish affairs. He had taken care to model the 
 veteran troops under his command in that kingdom, so as tc 
 subject them to his own separate control, and to remove such 
 officers as were either violent enthusiasts, or peculiarly attached 
 to Lambert, and his council of officers. Thus having under 
 his immediate orders a movable force of between seven and 
 eight thousand men, besides those necessary to garrison Scotland, 
 Monk eagerly watched the contest of the factions in London, 
 in order to perceive and seize on the fit opportunity for action. 
 
 This seemed to arrive when the army under Lambert again 
 thrust the Rump Parliament out of doors, and commenced a 
 new military government, by means of a committee of officers, 
 called the Council of Safety. Monk then threw aside the 
 mask of indifference which he had long worn, assembled his 
 forces on the Borders, and declared for the freedom of Parlia- 
 ment, and against the military faction by which they had been 
 suppressed. The persuasion was universal throughout Britain 
 that Monk, by these general expressions, meant something more 
 effectual than merely restoring the authority of the Rump, 
 which had fallen into the common contempt of all men, by the 
 repeated acts of violence to which they had tamely submitted. 
 But General Monk, allowing all parties to suppose what they 
 thought most probable, proceeded deliberately to make his pre- 
 parations for marching into England, without suffering even a 
 whisper to escape concerning the ultimate objects of the ex- 
 pedition. He assembled the Scottish Convention of Estates, 
 and asked and received from it a supply of six months' pay, for 
 the maintenance of his troops. The confidence entertained of 
 his intentions was such, that the Convention offered him the 
 support of a Scottish army of twenty-four thousand men ; but 
 Monk declined assistance which would have been unpopular in 
 England. He then proceeded in his plan of new-modelling his 
 army, with more boldness than before, dismissing many of the 
 Independent officers whom he had not before ventured to
 
 1659 MARCH OF MONK 563 
 
 cashier, and supplying their places with Presbyterians, and even 
 with secret Royalists. 
 
 The news of these proceedings spread through England, and 
 were generally received with joy. Universal resistance was 
 made to the payment of taxes ; for the Rump Parliament had, 
 on the eve of its expulsion by Lambert, declared it high treason 
 to levy money without consent of Parliament, and the provinces, 
 where Lambert and his military council had no power of en- 
 forcing their illegal exactions, refused to obey them. The Council 
 of Safety wanted money therefore, even for the payment of their 
 troops, and were reduced to extreme perplexity. 
 
 Lambert himself, a brave man, and a good officer, saw the 
 necessity of acting with promptitude ; and placing himself at 
 the head of a' considerable force of veteran soldiers, marched 
 towards Scotland. His numbers were exaggerated by the report 
 of the various spies and agents whom he sent into Monk's army 
 under the guise of envoys. " What will you do 1" said one of 
 these persons, addressing a party of Monk's soldiers ; " Lambert 
 is coming down against you with such numerous forces that your 
 army will not be a breakfast for him." 
 
 "The north must have given Lambert a good appetite," 
 answered one of Monk's veterans, "if he be willing to chew 
 bullets, and feed upon pikes and musket barrels." 
 
 In this tone of defiance the two armies moved against each 
 other. Lambert took up his headquarters at Newcastle. 
 Monk, on the other hand, placed his at Coldstream, on the 
 Tweed, a place which commanded the second best passage over 
 that river, Berwick being already in his hands. Coldstream, 
 now a thriving town, was then so miserable that Monk could 
 get no supper, even for his own table, but was fain to have 
 recourse to chewing tobacco to appease his hunger. Next day 
 provisions were sent from Berwick ; and the camp at Coldstream 
 is still kept in memory in the English army, by the second regi- 
 ment of guards, which was one of those that composed Monk's 
 vanguard, being called to this day the Coldstream Guards. 
 
 The rival generals at first engaged in a treaty, which Monk, 
 perceiving Lambert's forces to be more numerous than his own, 
 for some time encouraged, aware that want of pay, and of the 
 luxuries to which they were accustomed in London, would soon 
 induce his rival's troops to desert him.
 
 564 TALES OF A GRANDFATHKR CHAP. XLVlii 
 
 Disaffection and weariness accordingly began to diminish 
 Lambert's forces, when at length they heard news from the 
 capital by which they were totally dispirited. During Lambert's 
 absence, the presidency in the Military Committee, and the 
 command of such of the army as remained to overawe London, 
 devolved on General Fleetwood, a weak man, who really was 
 overcome by the feelings of fanaticism which others only 
 affected. Incapable of any exertion, this person suffered the 
 troops under his command to be seduced from his interest to 
 that of the Rump Parliament, which thus came again, and for 
 the last time, into power. With these tidings came to Newcastle 
 others of a nature scarce less alarming. The celebrated General 
 Fairfax had taken arms in Yorkshire, and was at the head of 
 considerable forces, both Cavaliers and Presbyterians, who de- 
 clared for calling a free Parliament, that the national will might 
 be consulted in the most constitutional manner for once more 
 regaining the blessing of a settled government. The soldiers 
 of Lambert, disconcerted by these events, and receiving no pay, 
 began to break up ; and when Lambert himself attempted to 
 lead them back to London, they left him in such numbers that 
 his army seemed actually to melt away, and leave the road to 
 the capital open to Monk and the forces from Scotland. 
 
 That general moved on accordingly, without opposition, 
 carefully concealing his owu intentions, receiving favourably 
 all the numerous applications which were made to him for 
 calling a new and free Parliament, in order to regenerate the 
 national constitution, but returning no reply which could give 
 the slightest intimation of his ultimate purpose. Monk observed 
 this mystery in order, perhaps, that he might reserve to himself 
 the power of being guided by circumstances at all events, 
 knowing well, that if he were to declare in favour of any one 
 party, or set of principals, among the various factious opinions 
 which divided the state, the others would at once unite 
 against him, a course which they would be loath to adopt 
 while each as yet entertained hopes that he might turn to 
 their side. 
 
 With the eyes of all the nation fixed upon him and his 
 forces, Monk advanced to Barnet, within ten miles of London, 
 and from thence caused the Parliament to understand that they 
 would do well to send from the city the remains of the army
 
 1659-60 MARCH OF MONK 565 
 
 of Fleetwood, in case of discord between his troops and those 
 which at present occupied the capital The Rump Parliament 
 had no alternative but to take the hint, unless they had resolved 
 to try the fate of battle at the head of those insubordinate 
 troops against the steady veterans of the Scottish wars. The 
 late army of Fleetwood, excepting two regiments commanded 
 by men whom Monk could perfectly trust, were ordered to 
 leave the city, and the general of the army of Scotland entered 
 at the head of his troops, who, rough from a toilsome march, 
 and bearing other marks of severe service, made a far more 
 hardy and serviceable, though a less showy appearance than 
 those who had so long bridled the people of London. 
 
 General Monk, and the remnant of the Parliament met 
 each other with external civility, but with great distrust on 
 both sides. They propounded to him the oath of abjuration, 
 as it was called, by which he was to renounce and abjure all 
 allegiance to the House of Stewart, and all attempts to restore 
 Charles II. But the general declined taking the oath; too 
 many oaths, he said, had been already imposed on the public, 
 unless they had been better kept. This circumstance seemed 
 to throw light on Monk's intentions, and the citizens of London, 
 now as anxious for the King's restoration as ever they had been 
 for the expulsion of his father, passed a vote in Common Council, 
 by which they declared they would pay no taxes or contribu- 
 tions to this shadow of a Parliament until the vacant seats in 
 it should be filled up to the full extent of a genuine House of 
 Commons. 
 
 The Rump Parliament had now, they conceived, an oppor- 
 tunity of ascertaining Monk's real purpose, and forcing him to 
 a decisive measure. They laid their express commands on 
 him to march into the city, seize upon the gates, break down 
 the portcullises, destroy the ports, chains, and other means 
 of defending the streets, and take from the contumacious 
 citizens all means of protecting in future the entrance into the 
 capital. 
 
 Monk, to the astonishment of most of his own officers, 
 obeyed the commands thus imposed on him. He was probably 
 desirous of ascertaining whether the disposition of his troops 
 would induce them to consider the task as a harsh and un- 
 worthy one. Accordingly, he no sooner heard his soldiers
 
 566 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLVlli 
 
 exclaiming at the disgrace of becoming the tools of the 
 vengeance of the Rump members against the city of London 
 than he seemed to adopt their feelings and passions as his own, 
 and like them complained, and complained aloud, of having 
 been employed in an unjust and unpopular task for the express 
 purpose of rendering him odious to the citizens. 
 
 At this crisis the rashness of the ruling junto, for it would 
 be absurd to term them a Parliament, gave the general, whom 
 it was their business to propitiate if possible, a new subject of 
 complaint. They encouraged a body of the most fanatical 
 sectaries, headed by a ridiculous personage called Praise -God 
 Barebone, to present a violent petition to the House, demanding 
 that no one should be admitted to any office of public trust, or 
 so much as to teach a school, without his having taken the 
 abjuration oath ; and proposing that any motion made in Parlia- 
 ment for the restoration of the King should be visited with the 
 pains of high treason. 
 
 The tenor of this petition, and the honour and favour which 
 it received when presented, gave Monk the further cause of 
 complaint against the Rump, or Remnant of the Parliament, 
 which perhaps was what he chiefly desired. He refused to 
 return to Whitehall, where he had formerly lodged, and took 
 up his abode in the city, where he found it easy to excuse his 
 late violence upon their defences, and to atone for it by declar- 
 ing himself the protector and ally of the magistrates and com- 
 munity. From his quarters in the heart of London the general 
 wrote to the Parliament an angry expostulation, charging 
 them with a design to arm the more violent fanatics, and call 
 in the assistance of Fleetwood and Lambert against the army 
 he had marched from Scotland ; and recommending to them, in 
 a tone of authority, forthwith to dissolve themselves, and call 
 a new Parliament, which should be open to all parties. The 
 Parliament, greatly alarmed at this intimation, sent two of 
 their members to communicate with the general ; but they 
 could only extract from him that if writs went instantly forth 
 for the new elections it would be very well, otherwise he and 
 they were likely to disagree. 
 
 The assurance that General Monk had openly quarrelled 
 with the present rulers, and was disposed to insist for a free 
 and full Parliament, was made public by the printing and dis-
 
 1660 THE LONG PARLIAMENT 567 
 
 persing of the general's letter, and the tidings filled the city 
 with most extravagant rejoicings. The Royalists and Presby- 
 terians, forgetting past animosities, mingled in common joy, 
 and vowed never more to gratify the ambition of factious tyrants 
 by their calamitous divisions. The rabble rung all the bells, 
 lighted immense bonfires in every street, and danced around 
 them, while they drank healths to the general, the secluded 
 members, and even to the King. But the principal part of 
 their amusement was roasting rumps of poultry, or fragments 
 of butcher meat cut into that form, in ridicule of their late 
 rulers, whose power they foresaw would cease whenever 
 a full Parliament should be convened. The revelry lasted the 
 whole night, which was that of llth February 1660. 
 
 Monk, supported at once by military strength and the con- 
 sciousness of general popularity, did not wait until the new 
 Parliament should be assembled, or the present dissolved, to 
 take measures for destroying the influence of the junto now 
 sitting at Westminster. He compelled them to open their 
 doors, and admit to their deliberations and votes all the secluded 
 members of their body, who had been expelled from their seats 
 by military violence, since it was first practised on the occasion 
 called Colonel Pride's Purge. These members, returning to 
 Parliament accordingly, made by their numbers such a pre- 
 dominant majority in the House that the fifty or sixty persons 
 who had lately been at the head of the Government were in- 
 stantly reduced to the insignificance, as a party, from which 
 they had only emerged by dint of the force which had been 
 exercised to exclude the large body who were now restored to 
 their seats. 
 
 The first acts of the House thus renovated were to disband 
 the refractory part of the army, to dispossess the disaffected 
 officers, of whom there were very many, and to reduce the 
 country to a state of tranquillity ; after which they dissolved 
 themselves, 16th March, having first issued writs to summon a 
 new Parliament, to meet on the 25th of April. Thus then 
 finally ended the Long Parliament, as it is called, which had sat 
 for nearly twenty years ; the most eventful period, perhaps, in 
 British History. 
 
 While this important revolution was on the eve of taking 
 place, Charles the Second's affairs seemed to be at a lower ebb
 
 568 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLVIII 
 
 than they had almost ever been before. A general insurrection 
 of the Cavaliers had been defeated by Lambert a few months 
 before, and the severe measures which followed had, for the 
 time, totally subdued the spirit, and almost crushed the party 
 of the Royalists. It was in vain that Charles had made ad- 
 vances to Honk while in Scotland, both through the general's 
 own brother, and by means of Sir John Grenville, one of his 
 nearest and most valued relatives and friends. If Monk's 
 mind was then made up concerning the part which he designed 
 to perform, he at least was determined to keep his purpose 
 secret in his own bosom, and declined, therefore, though civilly, 
 to hear any proposition on the part of the banished family. 
 The accounts which the little exiled court received concerning 
 Monk's advance into England were equally disconsolate. All 
 intercourse with the Cavaliers had been carefully avoided by 
 the cloudy and mysterious soldier, in whose hands Fortune 
 seemed to place the fate of the British kingdoms. The 
 general belief was, that Monk would renew, in his own person, 
 the attempt in which Cromwell had succeeded and Lambert 
 had failed, and again place a military commander at the head 
 of the government \ and this opinion seemed confirmed by his 
 harsh treatment of the City. 
 
 While Charles and his attendants were in this state of 
 despondence, they were suddenly astonished by the arrival from 
 England of a partisan, named Baillie, an Irish Royalist, who 
 had travelled with extreme rapidity to bring the exiled Prince 
 the news of Monk's decided breach with the remnant of the 
 Long Parliament, and the temper which had been displayed 
 by the City of London when his letter became public. The 
 King and bis small Council listened to the messenger as they 
 would have done to one speaking in a dream. Over-wearied 
 and fatigued by the journey, and strongly excited by the import- 
 ance of the intelligence which he brought them, the officer 
 seemed rather like one under the influence of temporary derange- 
 ment or intoxication than the deliberate bearer of great tidings. 
 His character was, however, known as a gentleman of fidelity 
 and firmness, and they heard him with wonder again and again 
 affirm, that London was blazing with bonfires, that the universal 
 wish of the people of all sorts, boldly and freely expressed, 
 demanded the restoration of the King to his authority, and
 
 I66o THE RESTORATION 569 
 
 that Monk had insisted upon the summoning of a free Parlia- 
 ment, which the junto called the Rump had no longer the 
 power of opposing. He produced also a copy of Monk's letter 
 to the Parliament, to show that the general had completely 
 broken with that body. 
 
 Other messengers soon confirmed the joyful tidings, and Sir 
 John Grenville was despatched to London in all haste, with 
 full powers to offer the general everything which could gratify 
 ambition or love of wealth, on condition of his proving the 
 friend of Charles at this crisis. 
 
 This faithful and active Royalist reached the metropolis, 
 and cautiously refusing to open his commission to any one, 
 obtained a private interview with the mysterious and reserved 
 general. He boldly communicated his credentials, and remained 
 unappalled when Monk, stepping back in surprise, asked him, 
 with some emotion, how he dared become the bearer of such 
 proposals. Sir John replied firmly, that all danger which 
 might be incurred in obedience to his sovereign's command had 
 become familiar to him from frequent practice, and that the 
 King, from the course which Monk had hitherto pursued, enter- 
 tained the most confident hope of his loyal service. On this 
 General Monk either laid aside the mask which he had always' 
 worn, or only now formed his determination upon a line of 
 conduct that had hitherto been undecided in his own mind. 
 He accepted of the high offers tendered to him by the young 
 Prince ; and, from that moment, if not earlier, made the interest 
 of Charles the principal object of his thoughts. It has been 
 indeed stated, that he had expressed his ultimate purpose of 
 serving Charles before leaving Scotland ; but, whatever may 
 have been his secret intentions, it seems improbable that he 
 made any one his confidant 
 
 At the meeting of the new Parliament, the House of Peers, 
 which regained under this new aspect of things the privileges 
 which Cromwell had suspended, again assumed their rank as a 
 branch of the legislature. As the Royalists and Presbyterians 
 concurred in the same purpose of restoring the King, and pos- 
 sessed the most triumphant majority, if not the whole votes, 
 in the new House of Commons, the Parliament had only to 
 be informed that Grenville awaited without, bearing letters 
 from King Charles, when he was welcomed into the House
 
 570 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP, xi.vin 
 
 with shouts and rejoicings ; and the British Constitution, by 
 King, Lords, and Commons, after having been suspended for 
 twenty years, was restored at once and by acclamation. 
 
 Charles Stewart, instead of being a banished pretender, 
 whose name it was dangerous to pronounce, and whose cause it 
 was death to espouse, became at once a lawful, beloved, almost 
 adored prince, whose absence was mourned by the people, as 
 they might have bemoaned that of the sun itself; and numbers 
 of the great or ambitious hurried to Holland, where Charles 
 now was, some to plead former services, some to excuse ancient 
 delinquencies, some to allege the merit of having staked their 
 lives in the King's cause, others to enrich the monarch by 
 sharing with him the spoils which they had gained by fighting 
 against him. 
 
 It has been said by historians that this precipitate and 
 general haste in restoring Charles to the throne, without any 
 conditions for the future, was throwing away all the advantage 
 which the nation might have derived from the Civil Wars, and 
 that it would have been much better to have readmitted the 
 King, upon a solemn treaty, which should have adjusted the 
 prerogative of the crown, and the rights of the subject, and 
 settled for ever those great national questions which had been 
 disputed between Charles the First and his Parliament. 
 
 This sounds all well in theory ; but in practice there are 
 many things, and perhaps the Kestoratiou is one of them, 
 which may be executed easily and safely if the work is com- 
 menced and carried through in the enthusiasm of a favourable 
 moment, but which is likely enough to miscarry if protracted 
 beyond that happy conjuncture. The ardour in favour of 
 monarchy with which the mass of the English nation was at 
 this time agitated, might probably have abated during such a 
 lengthened treaty, providing for all the delicate questions re- 
 specting the settlement of the Church and State, and neces- 
 sarily involving a renewal of all the discussions which had 
 occasioned the Civil War. And supposing that the old discord 
 was not rekindled by raking among its ashes, still it should be 
 remembered that great part of Cromwell's array was not yet 
 dissolved, and that even Monk's troops were not altogether to 
 be confided in. So that the least appearance of disunion, such 
 as the discussions of the proposed treaty were certain to give
 
 1660 THK RESTORATION 571 
 
 rise to, might have afforded these warlike enthusiasts a pretext 
 for again assembling together, and reinstating the military 
 despotism which they were pleased to term the Keign of the 
 Saints. 
 
 A circumstance occurred which showed how very pressing 
 this danger was, and how little wisdom there would have been 
 in postponing the restoration of a legal government to the event 
 of a treaty. Lambert, who had been lodged in the Tower as a 
 dangerous person, made his escape from that state prison, fled 
 to Daventry, and began to assemble forces. The activity of 
 Colonel Ingoldsby, who had been, like Lambert himself, 
 an officer under Cromwell, but who was now firmly 
 attached to Monk, stifled a spark which might have raised a 
 mighty conflagration. He succeeded in gaining over and dis- 
 persing the troops who had assembled under Lambert, and, 
 making his former commander prisoner with his own hand, 
 brought him back in safety to his old quarters in the Tower of 
 London. But as the roads were filled with soldiers of the old 
 Cromwellian army, hastening to join Lambert, it was clear that 
 only the immediate suppression of his force, and the capture of 
 his person, prevented the renewal of general hostilities. 
 
 In so delicate a state of affairs, it was of importance that the 
 Restoration, being the measure to which all wise men looked as 
 the only radical cure for the distresses and disorders of the king- 
 dom, should be executed hastily, leaving it in future to the mutual 
 prudence of the King and his subjects to avoid the renewal of 
 those points of quarrel which had given rise to the Civil War 
 of 1641, since which time both Royalists and Parliamentarians 
 had suffered such extreme misery as was likely to make them 
 very cautious how the one made unjust attempts to extend the 
 power of the crown, or the other to resist it while within its 
 constitutional limits. 
 
 The King landed at Dover on 26th May 1660, and was 
 received by General Monk, now gratified and honoured with the 
 dukedom of Albemarle, the Order of the Garter, and the com- 
 mand of the army. He entered London on the 29th, which 
 was also his birthday ; and with him came his two brothers, 
 James, Duke of York, of whom we shall have much to say, and 
 the Duke of Gloucester, who died early. They were received 
 with such extravagant snouts of welcome that the King said to
 
 572 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLVIII 
 
 those around him, " It must surely have been our own fault 
 that we have been so long absent from a country where every 
 one seems so glad to see us." 
 
 Of Charles the Second, who thus unexpectedly, and as it 
 were by miracle, was replaced on his father's throne, in spite of 
 so many obstacles as within even a week or two of the event 
 seemed to render it incredible, I have not much that is 
 advantageous to tell you. He was a prince of an excellent 
 understanding, of which he made less use than he ought to 
 have done ; a graceful address, much ready wit, and no deficiency 
 of courage. Unfortunately, he was very fond of pleasure, and, 
 in his zeal to pursue it, habitually neglected the interests of his 
 kingdom. He was very selfish too, like all whose own gratifica- 
 tion is their sole pursuit ; and he seems to have cared little what 
 became of friends or enemies, provided he could maintain himself 
 on the throne, get money to supply the expenses of a luxurious 
 and dissolute court, and enjoy a life of easy and dishonourable 
 pleasure. He was good-natured in general ; but any apprehension 
 of his own safety easily induced him to be severe and even cruel, 
 for his love of self predominated above both his sense of justice 
 and his natural clemency of temper. He was always willing to 
 sacrifice sincerity to convenience, and perhaps the satirical 
 epitaph, written upon him at his own request, by his witty 
 favourite, the Earl of Rochester, is not more severe than just 
 
 " Here lies our Sovereign Lord the King, 
 
 Whose word no man relies on ; 
 Who never said a foolish thing, 
 And never did a wise one. " 
 
 After this sketch of the King's character, we shall return to 
 Scotland, from which we have been absent since Monk's march 
 from Coldstream, to accomplish the Restoration.
 
 1660 THE RESTORATION 573 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX 
 
 Tlie Restoration causes general joy in Scotland Middleton sent as High, 
 Commissioner to the Scottish Parliament Introduction of Episco- 
 pacy Trial and Execution of Argyle Conventicles The Earl of 
 Lauderdale succeeds to the power of Middleton 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGN. France: Louis XIV. 
 16601665 
 
 THE Restoration was celebrated with the same general and joy- 
 ful assent in Scotland which had hailed it in the sister country. 
 Indeed the Scots, during the whole war, can hardly be said to 
 have quitted their sentiments of loyalty to the monarchy. They 
 had fought against Charles I., first to establish Presbytery in 
 their own country, and then to extend it into England ; but 
 then even the most rigid of the Presbyterians had united in the 
 resistance to the English invasion, had owned the right of 
 Charles the Second, and asserted it to their severe national loss 
 at the battle of Dunbar. Since that eventful overthrow, the 
 influence of the Church of Scotland over the people at large had 
 been considerably diminished, by disputes among the ministers 
 themselves, as they espoused more rigid or more moderate doc- 
 trines, and by the various modes in which it had been Cromwell's 
 policy to injure their respectability, and curb their power. But 
 the Presbyterian interest was still very strong in Scotland. It 
 entirely engrossed the western counties, had a large share of in- 
 fluence in the south and midland provinces, and was only less 
 predominant in the northern shires, where the Episcopal interest 
 prevailed. 
 
 The Presbyterian Church was sufficiently alive to their own 
 interest and that of their body, for they had sent to Monk's 
 army, ere it had reached London, an agent or commissioner to 
 take care of the affairs of the Scottish Church in any revolution 
 which should take place in consequence of the general's expedi- 
 tion. 
 
 This agent was James Sharp, famous during his life, and 
 still more in his deplorable death. At this time he was a mau
 
 574 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLIX 
 
 competently learned, bold, active, and ambitious, displaying 
 much zeal for the interest of the Church, and certainly by no 
 means negligent of his own. This Master James Sharp quickly 
 found, while in London, that there was little purpose of establish- 
 ing the Presbyterian religion in Scotland. It is true, that 
 King Charles had, on his former expedition into Scotland, 
 deliberately accepted and sworn to the Solemn League and 
 Covenant, the principal object of which was the establishment 
 of Presbytery of the most rigid kind. It was also true that 
 the Earl of Lauderdale, who, both from his high talents and 
 from the long imprisonment which he had sustained ever since 
 the battle of Worcester, had a peculiar title to be consulted on 
 Scottish affairs, strongly advised the King to suffer his northern 
 subjects to retain possession of their darling form of worship ; 
 and though he endeavoured to give this advice in the manner 
 most agreeable to the King, ridiculing bitterly the pedantry 
 of the Scottish ministers, and reprobating the uses made of the 
 Covenant, and in so far gratifying and amusing the King, still he 
 returned to the point, that the Covenant and Presbyterian dis- 
 cipline ought not to be removed from Scotland, while the people 
 continued so partial to them. They should be treated, he 
 argued, like froward children, whom their keepers do not vex 
 by struggling to wrest from them an unfitting plaything, but 
 quietly wait to withdraw it when sleep or satiety makes it in- 
 different to them. 
 
 But the respect due to the King's personal engagement, as 
 well as the opinion thus delivered by this worldly-wise noble- 
 man, were strongly contested by those Cavaliers who professed 
 absolute loyalty and devotion to the King, and affected to form 
 their political opinions on those of Montrose. They laid upon 
 the Presbyterian Church the whole blame of the late rebellion, 
 and contended that the infamous transaction of delivering up 
 Charles the First to the Parliamentary forces was the act of an 
 army guided by Presbyterian counsels. In short, they imputed 
 to the Church of Scotland the whole original guilt of the war ; 
 and though it was allowed that they at length joined the Royal 
 cause, it was immediately added that their accession only took 
 place when they were afraid of being deprived of their power over 
 men's consciences by Cromwell and his independent schismatics. 
 The King was then reminded, that he had been received by the
 
 I660-I COMMISSIONER MIDbLETON 576 
 
 Presbyterians less as their prince than as a passive tool and 
 engine, whom they determined to indulge in nothing save the 
 name of a sovereign ; and that his taking the Covenant had 
 been under a degree of moral restraint, which rendered it as 
 little binding as if imposed by personal violence. Lastly, the 
 King was assured that the whole people of Scotland were now 
 so much delighted with his happy restoration, that the moment 
 was highly favourable for any innovation, either in church or 
 state, which might place the crown firmer on his head ; 
 that no change could be so important as the substitution of 
 Episcopacy for Presbytery ; and that the opportunity, if lost, 
 might never return. 
 
 The King himself had personal reasons, though they ought 
 not to have entered into such a discussion, for recollecting with 
 disgust the affronts and rigorous treatment which he had 
 received from the Presbyterian leaders, before the battle of 
 Dunbar had diminished their power. He had then adopted a 
 notion that Presbytery was not a religion " for a gentleman," 
 and he now committed to Lord Middleton, who was to be his 
 High Commissioner and representative in the Scottish Parlia- 
 ment, full powers to act in the matter of altering the national 
 religious establishment to the Episcopal model as soon as he 
 should think proper. 
 
 This determination was signing the doom of Presbytery as 
 far as Charles could do so ; for Middleton, though once in the 
 service of the Covenanting Parliament, and as such opposed to 
 Montrose, by whom he was beaten at the bridge of Dee, had 
 afterwards been Major-General of the Duke of Hamilton's 
 ill-fated army, which was destroyed at Uttoxeter in 1648, and 
 ever since that period had fought bravely, though unsuccess- 
 fully, in the cause of Charles, maintaining at the same time 
 the tenets of the most extravagant Royalism. He was a good 
 soldier, but in other respects a man of inferior talents, who had 
 lived the life of au adventurer, and who, in enjoying the height 
 of fortune which he had attained, was determined to indulge 
 without control all his favourite propensities. These were, 
 unhappily, of a coarse and scandalous nature. The Covenanters 
 had assumed an exterior of strict demeanour and precise mo- 
 rality ; and the Cavaliers, in order to show themselves their 
 opposites in every respect, gave in to the most excessive
 
 576 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLIX 
 
 indulgences in wine and revelry, and conceived that in doing so 
 they showed their loyalty to the King, and their contempt of 
 what they termed the formal hypocrisy of his enemies. When 
 the Scottish Parliament met, the members were, in many 
 instances, under the influence of wine; and they were more 
 than once obliged to adjourn because the Royal Commissioner 
 was too intoxicated to behave properly in the chair. 
 
 While the Scottish Parliament was in this jovial humour, 
 it failed not to drive forward the schemes of the Commissioner 
 Middleton, and of the very violent Royalists, with a zeal which 
 was equally imprudent and impolitic. At once, and by a 
 single sweeping resolution, it annulled and rescinded every 
 statute and ordinance which had been made by those holding 
 the supreme authority in Scotland since the commencement 
 of the Civil Wars ; although, in doing so, it set aside many laws 
 useful to the subject, many which had received the personal 
 assent of the sovereign, and some that were entered into 
 expressly for his defence, and the acknowledgment and protec- 
 tion of his right. By a statute subsequent to the Act 
 Rescissory, as it was called, the whole Presbyterian church 
 government was destroyed, and the Episcopal institutions, to 
 which the nation had shown themselves so adverse, were rashly 
 and precipitately established. James Sharp, to whom allusion 
 has already been made, who had yielded to the high temptations 
 held out to him, was named Lord Bishop of St. Andrews, 
 and Primate of Scotland, 1 and other persons, either ancient 
 members of the Episcopal Church, or new converts to the 
 doctrines which seemed a sure road to preferment, were 
 
 1 "The great stain will always remain, that Sharp deserted and 
 probably betrayed a cause which his brethren intrusted to him, and 
 abused to his own purposes a mission which he ought not to have 
 undertaken, but with the determination of maintaining its principal 
 object. Kirkton says, that when Sharp returned from Scotland, he 
 himself, affecting no ambition for the prelacy, pressed the acceptance of 
 the See of Saint Andrews upon Mr. Robert Douglas, one of his former 
 colleagues. The stern Presbyterian saw into his secret soul, and when 
 he had given his own positive rejection, demanded of his former friend 
 what he would do himself were the offer made to him ? Sharp hesitated ; 
 'I perceive," said Douglas, 'you are clear you will engage you will 
 be Primate of Scotland ; take it then,' he added, laying his hand on his 
 shoulder, ' and take the curse of God along with it.' The subject would 
 suit a painter." Review (j/'KiRKTOK's History.
 
 1661 REJOICING IN SCOTLAND 577 
 
 appointed prelates, with seats in Parliament, and who 
 afterwards attained great influence in the councils of the 
 nation. 
 
 It may seem wonderful that such great changes, and in a 
 matter so essential, should have been made without more 
 violent opposition. But the general joy at finding themselves 
 delivered from the domination of England; the withdrawing 
 the troops, and abandoning the citadels by which Cromwell 
 had ruled them, as a foreign conqueror governs a subdued 
 country; and the pleasure of enjoying once more their own 
 Parliament under the authority of their native prince, had a 
 great effect, amid the first tumult of joy, in reconciling the 
 minds of the Scottish people to the change even of the form 
 of religion, when proposed and carried through as the natural 
 consequences (it was pretended) of the restoration of Royal 
 power. 
 
 The Scottish nobility, and many of the gentry, especially 
 the younger men, had long resented the interference of the 
 Presbyterian preachers, in searching out scandals and impro- 
 prieties within the bosoms of families ; and this right, which 
 the clergy claimed and exercised, became more and more 
 intolerable to those who were disposed to adopt the gay and 
 dissolute manners which distinguished the Cavaliers of England, 
 and who had for some time regarded with resentment the 
 interference and rebukes with which the Presbyterian clergy 
 claimed the right of checking their career of pleasure. 
 
 The populace of the towns were amused with processions, 
 largesses, free distribution of liquor, and such like marks of 
 public rejoicing, by which they are generally attracted. And 
 I cannot help mentioning as remarkable, that on 23d April 
 1661 Jenny Geddes, the very woman who had given the first 
 signal of civil broil, by throwing her stool at the Dean of 
 Edinburgh's head, when he read the service-book on the 
 memorable 23d July 1637, showed her conversion to loyalty 
 by contributing the materials of her green-stall, her baskets, 
 shelves, forms, and even her own wicker -chair, to augment a 
 bonfire kindled in honour of his Majesty's coronation, and the 
 proceedings of his Parliament. 
 
 There were many, however, in Scotland, who were very 
 differently affected by the hasty proceedings of Middleton and 
 
 37
 
 578 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XL1X 
 
 his jovial Parliament, of whose sentiments I shall have much 
 to say hereafter. 
 
 The greatest evil to be apprehended from the King's return 
 was the probability that he might be disposed to distinguish 
 the more especial enemies of himself and his father, and 
 perpetuate the memory of former injuries and quarrels by 
 taking vengeance for them. Charles had indeed published a 
 promise of indemnity and of oblivion for all offences during the 
 civil war against his own or his father's person. But this 
 proclamation bore an exception of such persons as Parliament 
 should point out as especially deserving of punishment Ac- 
 cordingly, those who had been actively concerned in the death, 
 or, as it may well be termed, the murder of Charles I., were, 
 with one or two others, who had been peculiarly violent during 
 the late times, excepted from pardon ; and although but few 
 were actually executed, yet it had been better perhaps to 
 have spared several even of the most obnoxious class. But 
 that is a question belonging to English history. In order that 
 Scotland might enjoy the benefit of similar examples of severity, 
 it was resolved also to bring to trial some of the most active 
 persons there. 
 
 Among these, the Marquis of Argyle, whom we have so 
 often mentioned, was by far the most considerable. He had 
 repaired to London, on the Restoration, hoping to make interest 
 with the King, but was instantly arrested, and imprisoned 
 in the Tower, and afterwards sent down to Scotland to undergo 
 a trial, according to the laws of that country. There was a 
 strong desire, on the part of the Cavalier party, that Argyle 
 should be put to death, in revenge for the execution of 
 Montrose, to whom, you must remember, he had been a deadly 
 and persevering enemy. Undoubtedly this powerful nobleman 
 had been guilty of much cruelty in suppressing the Royalist 
 party in the Highlands; and had probably been privately 
 accessary to Moutrose's tragical fate, though he seemed to hold 
 aloof from the councils held on the subject But it was then 
 greatly too late to call him into judgment for these things. 
 The King, when he came to Scotland after Montrose's execu- 
 tion, had acknowledged all that was done against that 
 illustrious loyalist as good service rendered to himself, had 
 entered the gate of Edinburgh, over which the features of his
 
 1661 EXECUTION OF ARGYLE 579 
 
 faithful general were blackening in the sun, and had received, 
 in such circumstances, the attendance and assistance of Argyle 
 as of a faithful and deserving subject. Nay, besides all this, 
 which in effect implied a pardon for Argyle's past offences, the 
 Marquis was protected by the general Act of Remission, granted 
 by Charles in 1651, for all state offence committed before that 
 period. 
 
 Sensible of the weight of this defence, the crown counsel 
 and judges searched anxiously for some evidence of Argyle's 
 having communicated with the English army subsequently to 
 1651. The trial was long protracted, and the accused was 
 about to be acquitted for want of testimony to acts of more 
 importance than that compulsory submission which the con- 
 quering Englishmen demanded from all, and which no one had 
 the power to refuse. But just when the Marquis was about 
 to be discharged, a knock was heard at the door of the court, 
 and a despatch just arrived from London was handed to the 
 Lord Advocate. As it was discovered that the name of the 
 messenger was Campbell, it was concluded that he bore the 
 pardon, or remission of the Marquis; but the contents were 
 very different, being certain letters which had been written by 
 Argyle to General Monk, when the latter was acting under 
 Cromwell, in which he naturally endeavoured to gain the 
 general's good opinion by expressing a zeal for the English 
 interest, then headed and managed by his correspondent. Monk, 
 it seems, had not intended to produce these letters, if other 
 matter had occurred to secure Argyle's condemnation, desirous, 
 doubtless, to avoid the ignominy of so treacherous an action ; 
 yet he resolved to send them, that they might be produced iu 
 evidence, rather than that the accused should be acquitted. 
 This transaction leaves a deep blot on the character of the 
 restorer of the English monarchy. 
 
 These letters so faithlessly brought forward, were received 
 as full evidence of the Marquis's ready compliance with the 
 English enemy ; and being found guilty, though only of doing 
 that which no man in Scotland dared refuse to do at the time, 
 he received sentence of death by beheading. 
 
 As Argyle rose from his knees, on which he had received 
 the sentence, he offered to speak, but the trumpets sounding, 
 lie stopped till they ended ; then he said, " This reminds me
 
 580 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLIX 
 
 that I had the honour to set the crown upon the King's head " 
 (meaning at the coronation at Scone), " and now he hastens 
 me to a better crown than his own ! " Then turning to the 
 Commissioner and Parliament he added, "You have the in- 
 demnity of an earthly king among your hands, and have denied 
 me a share in that, but you cannot hinder me from the indem- 
 nity of the King of Kings ; and shortly you must be before 
 his tribunal. I pray he mete not out such measure to you as 
 you have done to me, when you are called to account for all 
 your actings, and this among the rest." 
 
 He faced death with a courage which other passages of his 
 life had not prepared men to expect, for he was generally 
 esteemed to be of a timorous disposition. On the scaffold, he 
 told a friend that he felt himself capable of braving death like 
 a Roman, but he preferred submitting to it with the patience 
 of a Christian. The rest of his behaviour made his words 
 good ; and thus died the celebrated Marquis of Argyle, so im- 
 portant a person during this melancholy time. He was called 
 by the Highlanders Gillespie Gruuiach, or the Gritu, from an 
 obliquity in his eyes, which gave a sinister expression to his 
 countenance. The Marquis's head replaced on the tower of the 
 tolbooth that of Moutrose, his formidable enemy, whose scat- 
 tered limbs were now assembled, and committed with much 
 pomp to an honourable grave. 
 
 John Swinton of Swintoii, representative of a family which 
 is repeatedly mentioned in the preceding series of these tales, 
 was destined to share Argyle's fate. He had taken the side of 
 Cromwell very early after the battle of Dunbar, and it was by 
 his councils, and those of Lockhart of Lee, that the usurper 
 chiefly managed the affairs of Scotland. He was, therefore, far 
 more deeply engaged in compliances with Cromwell than the 
 Marquis of Argyle, though less obnoxious in other respects. 
 Swinton was a man of acute and penetrating judgment, and 
 great activity of mind ; yet, finding himself beset with danger, 
 and sent down to Scotland in the same ship with Argyle, he 
 chose, from conviction, or to screen himself from danger, to turn 
 Quaker. As he was determined that his family should embrace 
 the same faith, his eldest son, when about to rise in the uiorn 
 ing, was surprised to see that his laced scarlet coat, his rapier, 
 and other parts of a fashionable young gentleman's dress at the
 
 I66I-2 JOHN SWINTON 581 
 
 time, were removed, and that a plain suit of gray cloth, with 
 a slouched hat, without loop or button, was laid down by his 
 bedside. He could hardly be prevailed on to assume this 
 simple habit. 
 
 His father, on the contrary, seemed entirely to have humbled 
 himself to the condition he had assumed ; and when he appeared 
 at the bar in the plain attire of his new sect, he declined to 
 use any of the legal pleas afforded by the act of indemnity, or 
 otherwise, but answered, according to his new religious prin- 
 ciples of non-resistance, that it was true he had been guilty of 
 the crimes charged against him, and many more, but it was 
 when he was in the gall of wickedness and bond of iniquity ; 
 and that now, being called to the light, he acknowledged his 
 past errors, and did not refuse to atone for them with his life. 
 The mode of his delivery was at once so dignified and so modest, 
 and the sight of a person who had enjoyed great power, placed 
 under such altered circumstances, appears to have so much 
 affected the Parliament before whom he stood, that his life was 
 spared, though he was impoverished by forfeiture and confisca- 
 tion. The people in his own country said, that if Swiuton had 
 nob trembled he would not have quaked; but notwithstanding 
 this pun, his conversion seems to have been perfectly sincere. 
 It is said that he had a principal share in converting to the 
 opinions of the Friends, the celebrated Robert Barclay, who 
 afterwards so well defended their cause in the " Apology for 
 the people called, in scorn, Quakers." Swinton remained a 
 member of their congregation till his death, and was highly 
 esteemed among them. 
 
 The escape of Judge Swinton might be accounted almost 
 miraculous, for those who followed him during the same reign, 
 although persons chiefly of inferior note, experienced no cle- 
 mency. Johnstone of Warriston, executed for high treason, 
 was indeed a man of rank and a lawyer, who had complied with 
 all the measures of Cromwell and those who succeeded him. 
 But it seemed petty vengeance which selected as subjects for 
 capital punishment, Mr. Guthrie, a clergyman, who had written 
 a book imputing the wrath of Heaven against Scotland to the 
 sins of Charles I. and his house, and a man, called Govan, 
 merely because he had been the first to bring to Scotland the 
 news of Charles's death, and had told it in terms of approbation 
 
 37 a
 
 582 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLIX 
 
 An act of oblivion was at length passed ; but it contained a 
 fatal clause, that those who might be entitled to plead the 
 benefit of it should be liable to certain fines, in proportion to 
 their estates. The imposition of those fines was remitted to a 
 committee of Parliament, who secretly accepted large bribes 
 from those who were the most guilty, and inflicted severe 
 penalties on such as were comparatively innocent but who dis- 
 dained to compound for their trespasses. 
 
 A transaction of a description still more daring shows the 
 rapacious and reckless character of the commissioner Middleton 
 in the strongest light. 
 
 The Marquis of Argyle, as I have already said, had been 
 executed, and his son succeeded to the title of Earl of Argyle 
 only. He had repaired to London, in order to make some in- 
 terest at court, and had been persuaded that some of the minions 
 of Lord Clarendon, then at the head of affairs, would, for a 
 thousand pounds, undertake to procure for him that minister's 
 patronage and favour. Argyle upon this wrote a confidential 
 letter to Lord Duffus, in which he told him that provided he 
 could raise a thousand pounds, he would be able to obtain the 
 protection of the English minister ; that in such case he trusted 
 the present would prove but a gowk storm ; l and after some 
 other depreciating expressions concerning the prevailing party 
 in the Scottish Parliament, he added, that "then the King 
 would see their tricks." 
 
 This letter fell into the hands of Middleton, who determined, 
 that for expressions so innocent and simple, being in fact the 
 natural language of a rival courtier, Argyle should be brought 
 to trial for leasing-making ; a crime, the essence of which con- 
 sisted in spreading abroad falsehoods, tending to sow dissension 
 between the King and the people. On this tyrannical law, which 
 had been raked up on purpose, but which never could have been 
 intended to apply to a private letter, Argyle was condemned to 
 lose his head, and forfeit his estate. But the account of such 
 a trial and sentence for a vague expression of ill-humour, struck 
 Charles and his privy council with astonishment when it 
 reached England, and the Chancellor Clarendon was the first 
 
 1 A abort storm, such aa cornea in the spring, the season of the cuckoo 
 which the Scotch call the Gowk.
 
 1662 ACT OF UNIFORMITY 583 
 
 to exclaim in the King's presence, that did he think he lived 
 in a country where such gross oppression could be permitted, 
 he would get out of his Majesty's dominions as fast as the gout 
 would permit him. An order was sent down, forbidding the 
 execution of Argyle, who was nevertheless detained prisoner 
 until the end of Middleton's government, a severe penalty for 
 imputing tricks to the Royal Ministry. He was afterwards re- 
 stored to his liberty and estates, to become at a biter period a 
 victim to similar persecution. 
 
 It was by driving on the alteration of church government 
 in Scotland, that Middleton hoped to regain the place in 
 Charles's favour, and Clarendon's good opinion, which he had 
 lost by his excesses and severity. A general act of uniform- 
 ity was passed for enforcing the observances of the Episcopal 
 Church, and it was followed up by an order of coun- 
 cil of the most violent character, framed, it is said, 
 during the heat of a drunken revel at Glasgow. 
 This furious mandate commanded that all ministers who had 
 not received a presentation from their lay patrons, and spiritual 
 induction into their livings from the prelates, should be re- 
 moved from them by military force, if necessary. All their 
 parishioners were prohibited from attending upon the ministry 
 of such nonconformists, or acknowledging them as clergymen. 
 This was at one stroke displacing all Presbyterian ministers 
 who might scruple at once to become Episcopalians. 
 
 It appeared by this rash action that Middleton entertained 
 an opinion that the ministers, however attached to Presby- 
 terianisin, would submit to the Episcopal model rather than lose 
 their livings, which were the only means most of them hud for 
 the support of themselves and families. But to the great 
 astonishment of the commissioners, about three hundred and 
 fifty ministers resigned their churches without hesitation, and 
 determined to submit to the last extremity of poverty rather 
 than enjoy comfort at the price of renouncing the tenets of 
 their Church. In the north parts of Scotland, in the midland 
 counties, and along the eastern side of the Borders, many or 
 most of the clergy conformed. But the western shires, where 
 Presbytery had been ever most flourishing, were almost en- 
 tirely deprived of their pastors ; and the result was, that a 
 number equal to one-third of the whole parish ministers of
 
 584 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLIX 
 
 Scotland were at once expelled from their livings, and the 
 people deprived of their instructions. 
 
 The congregations of the exiled preachers were strongly 
 affected by this sweeping change, and by the fate of their 
 clergymen. Many of the latter had, by birth or marriage, re- 
 lations and connections in the parishes from which they were 
 summarily banished, and they had all been the zealous in- 
 structors of the people in religion, and often their advisers in 
 secular matters also. It was not in nature that their congre 
 gations should have seen them with indifference suddenly 
 reduced from decent comfort to indigence, and submitting to it 
 with patience, rather than sacrifice their conscientious scruples 
 to their interest. Accordingly, they showed, in almost every 
 case, the deepest sympathy with the distresses of their pastors, 
 and corresponding indignation against the proceedings of the 
 Government. 
 
 The cause also for which the clergy suffered was not in- 
 different to the laity. It is true, the consequences of the Solemn 
 League and Covenant had been so fatal, that at the time of the 
 Restoration none but a few high-flying and rigid Presbyterians 
 would have desired the re-establishment of that celebrated en- 
 gagement It depended only on the temper and moderation 
 of the court to have reduced what was once the idol of all 
 true Presbyterians to the insignificance of an old almanac, 
 as it had been termed by the Independents. But there was 
 great difference between suffering the Covenant to fall into 
 neglect, as containing doctrines too highly pitched and readily 
 susceptible of misrepresentation, and in complying with the 
 Government by ridiculing as absurd, and renouncing as odious, 
 a document which had been once so much respected. 
 
 The Parliament, however, commanded the Solemn League 
 and Covenant to be burned at the Cross of Edinburgh, and 
 elsewhere, with every mark of dishonour ; while figures, 
 dressed up to resemble Western Whigamores, as they were 
 called, were also committed to the flames, to represent a burn- 
 ing of Presbyterianism in effigy. But as those who witnessed 
 these proceedings could not but recollect, at the same time, 
 that upon its first being formed, the same Covenant had beep 
 solemnly sworn to by almost all Scotland, nobility, gentry 
 clergy, burgesses, and people, with weeping eyes, and uplifted
 
 1663-5 ACT OF UNIFORMITY 685 
 
 hands, and had been solemnly taken by the King himself, and 
 a very large proportion of the statesmen, including the present 
 ministers, it was natural they should feel involuntary respect 
 for that which once appeared so sacred to themselves, or to 
 their fathers, and feel the unnecessary insults directed against 
 it as a species of sacrilege. 
 
 The oaths, also, which imposed on every person in public 
 office the duty of renouncing the Covenant, as an unlawful 
 engagement, were distressing to the consciences of many, 
 particularly of the lower class ; and, in general, the efforts 
 made to render the Covenant odious and contemptible rather 
 revived its decaying interest with the Scottish public. 
 
 There was yet another aggravation of the evils consequent 
 on the expulsion of the Presbyterian clergy. So many pulpits 
 became vacant at once, that the prelates had no means of fill- 
 ing them up with suitable persons, whose talents and influence 
 might have supplied the place of the exiled preachers. Num- 
 bers of half-educated youths were hastily sent for from the 
 northern districts, in order that they might become curates, 
 which was the term used in the Scottish Episcopal Church for 
 a parish priest, although commonly applied in England to sig- 
 nify a clergymen hired to discharge the duty of another. 
 From the unavoidable haste in filling the vacancies in the 
 Church, these raw students, so hastily called into the spiritual 
 vineyard, had, according to the historians of the period, as little 
 morality as learning, and still less devotion than either. A 
 northern country gentleman is said to have cursed the scruples 
 of the Presbyterian clergy, because, he said, ever since they 
 threw up their livings it was impossible to find a boy to herd 
 cows they had all gone away to be curates in the west. 
 
 The natural consequences of all these adverse circumstances 
 were, that the Presbyterian congregations withdrew themselves 
 in numbers from the parish churches, treated the curates with 
 neglect and disrespect, and, seeking out their ancient preachers 
 in the obscurity to which they had retired, begged and received 
 from them the religious instruction which the deprived clergy- 
 men still thought it their duty to impart to those who needed 
 and desired it, in despite of the additional severities imposed 
 by the Government upon their doing so. 
 
 The Episcopal Church Courts, or Commission Courts, as
 
 586 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLIX 
 
 they were termed, took upon them to find a remedy for the 
 defection occasioned by the scruples of the people. Nine pre- 
 lates, and thirty-five commissioners from the laity, of whom a 
 bishop, with four assistants, made a quorum, were entrusted 
 with the power of enforcing the acts for the preservation of 
 the newly re-established Episcopal Church. These oppressive 
 ecclesiastical courts were held wherever there was a complaint 
 of nonconformity ; and they employed all the rigours of long 
 imprisonment, heavy fines, and corporal punishment, upon 
 those who either abandoned the worship of their own parish 
 church or went to hear the doctrine of the Presbyterian clergy, 
 whose private meetings for worship were termed conventicles. 
 
 These conventicles were at first held in private houses, barns, 
 or other buildings, as was the case in England, where (though 
 in a much more moderate degree, and by milder measures) 
 the general conformity of the Church was also enforced. But 
 as such meetings, especially if numerously attended, were liable 
 to be discovered and intruded upon by peace -officers and 
 soldiers, who dispersed them rudely, sometimes plundering the 
 men of their purses, and the women of their cloaks and plaids, 
 the Scottish Presbyterians had recourse to an expedient of 
 safety, suggested by the wild character of their country, and 
 held these forbidden meetings in the open air, remote alike 
 from observation and interruption, in wild, solitary, and moun- 
 tainous places, where it was neither easy to find them nor 
 safe to disturb them, unless the force which assailed the 
 congregation was considerable. 
 
 On the other hand, the Privy Council doubled their exer- 
 tions to suppress, or rather to destroy, the whole body of non- 
 conformists. But the attention of the English ministers had 
 been attracted by the violence of their proceedings. Middleton 
 began to fall into disfavour with Charles, and was sent as 
 governor to Tangier, in a kind of honourable banishment, where 
 he lost the life which he had exposed to so many dangers in 
 battle by a fall down a staircase. 
 
 Lauderdale, who succeeded to his power, had much more 
 talent He was ungainly in his personal appearance, being 
 a big man, with shaggy red hair, coarse features, and a tongue 
 which seemed too large for his mouth. But he possessed a 
 great portion of sense, learning, and wit He was originally
 
 1 665 EARL OF LAUDERDALE 587 
 
 zealous for the Covenant, and his enemies at court had pressed 
 forward the oaths by which it was to be renounced with the 
 more eagerness, that they hoped Lauderdale would scruple to 
 take them ; but he only laughed at the idea of their supposing 
 themselves capable of forming any oath which could obstruct 
 the progress of his rise to political power. 
 
 Being now in full authority, Lauderdale distinctly perceived 
 that the violent courses adopted were more likely to ruin 
 Scotland than to establish Episcopacy. But he also knew 
 that he could not retain the power he had obtained, unless 
 by keeping on terms with Sharpe, the Primate of Scotland, 
 and the other bishops, at whose instigation these wild measures 
 were adopted and carried on ; and it is quite consistent 
 with Lauderdale's selfish and crafty character, to suppose that 
 he even urged them on to further excesses, in order that, when 
 the consequences had ruined their reputation, he might succeed 
 to the whole of that power of which, at present, the prelates 
 had a large share. The severities against dissenters, therefore, 
 were continued; and the ruinous pecuniary penalties which 
 were imposed on nonconformists were raised by quartering 
 soldiers upon the delinquents, who were entitled to have 
 lodging, meat, and drink in their houses, and forage for their 
 horses, without any payment till the fine was discharged. 
 These men, who knew they were placed for the purpose of 
 a punishment in the families where they were quartered, took 
 care to be so insolent and rapacious that if selling the last 
 article he had of any value could raise money, to rid him of 
 these unwelcome guests, the unfortunate landlord was glad 
 to part with them at whatever sacrifice. 
 
 The principal agents in this species of crusade against 
 Calvinism were the soldiers of the King's horse-guards, a body 
 raised since the Restoration upon the plan of the French house- 
 hold troops, the privates of which were accounted gentlemen, 
 being frequently the younger sons of men of some pretension 
 to family ; cavaliers by profession, accustomed to practise the 
 debauchery common among the dissolute youth of the period, 
 and likely, from habit and inclination, to be a complete pest 
 and torment to any respectable house in which they might 
 be quartered. Other regiments of horse, upon the ordinary 
 establishment, were raised for the same purpose.
 
 588 TALES OF A GRANDFATHER CHAP. XLix 
 
 The west of Scotland, and in particular Dumfriesshire, 
 Ayrshire, and Galloway, were peculiarly harassed, as being 
 more averse to the Episcopalian establishment, or, as the Council 
 termed it, more refractory and obstinate than any others. For 
 the purpose of punishing those nonconformists, Sir James 
 Turner was sent thither with a considerable party of troops, 
 and full commission from the Privy Council to impose and 
 levy fines, and ,inflict all the other penalties, for enforcing 
 general compliance with the Episcopal system. Sir James was 
 a soldier of fortune, who had served under David Lesley and 
 afterwards in the army of Engagers, under the Duke of 
 Hamilton. He was a man of some literature, having written 
 a treatise on the Art of War, and some other works, besides 
 his own Memoirs. Nevertheless, he appears, by the account he 
 gives of himself in his Memoirs, to have been an unscrupulous 
 plunderer, and other authorities describe him as a fierce and 
 dissolute character. In such hands the powers assigned by the 
 Commission were not likely to slumber, although Sir James 
 assures his readers that he never extorted above one-half of the 
 fine imposed. But a number of co-operating circumstances had 
 rendered the exercise of such a commission as was entrusted to 
 him less safe than it had hitherto been.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES 
 
 COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below. 
 
 RUG 8 191 
 
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 Book Slip-25m-9,'60(.B236s4)4280
 
 College 
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 1898 
 
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