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The Great Historic
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INTRODUCTION.
page 3
At the Union of the kingdoms in 1707 the Peerage Roll of Scotland contained ten
dukes, three marquises, seventy-five earls, seventeen viscounts, and forty-nine
barons—in all, a hundred and fifty-four peers. There have been subsequently
enrolled one duke, two marquises, two earls, and six barons. At the present time
the Scottish peerage consists of only eighty-seven members, and of these
forty-nine are also peers of England or of Great Britain, while three are peers
of Ireland. Since the passing of an Act in 1847 ordering the Lord Clerk
Registrar, until otherwise directed by the House of Lords, not to call the title
of any peerage on the Union Roll in respect of which no vote had been received
during the present century, most of the dormant and extinct peerages have been
struck off the roll; but fourteen, which are believed to be extinct, have been
allowed to remain, on the ground that votes have been received in respect of
them since the year 1800. There are altogether forty-eight dormant or extinct
Scottish peerages, and sixteen are merged in other titles. Nine of the eleven
dukedoms which appear on the roll are still in existence, though one of them—Queensberry—is
united with the dukedom of Buccleuch. That of Gordon, which expired in 1836, has
recently been replaced by a British title of the same rank conferred on the Duke
of Richmond, who represents the elder branch of the family in the female line.
The dukedom of Douglas expired in 1761 on the death of the half-witted
peer, the first and only possessor of that title; while the other dignities of
that famous old house passed to its male representative, the Duke of Hamilton.
The only dormant marquisate is that of the Johnstones of Annandale, last borne
by the fatuous peer to whom David Hume, the philosopher and historian, for a
short time acted as tutor. Of the dormant earldoms the oldest and most
celebrated is the double earldom of Monteith and Strathern, of which Charles I.,
in the most arbitrary and unjust manner, deprived its last possessor, and by way
of compensation conferred upon him the earldom of Airth, a title which is also
now dormant. Next comes the earldom of Glencairn, long held by the powerful
Ayrshire family of Cunningham, who fought in the cause both of the Reformation
and the Covenant. The last of this illustrious race was a nobleman of a most
amiable disposition and great personal attractions, whose untimely death was
lamented by Burns in the most pathetic stanzas the poet ever wrote. In this list
is the earldom of Hyndford, held by the Carmichaels, one of whom was an
ambassador at the Prussian, Austrian, and Russian courts. Their estates but not
their titles have descended to the present Sir Wyndham Carmichael Anstruther. In
this list, too, are the Marchmont titles—an earldom, a viscounty, and a
barony—which were enjoyed by a branch of the powerful Border family of Home.
They were originally conferred upon Sir Patrick Hume, who, through the exertions
of his devoted daughter, the noble-minded Grizel Baillie, escaped the fate of
his fellow-patriot, Baillie of Jerviswood; was subsequently the associate of the
Earl of Argyll in his ill-starred expedition in 1685, and finally became Lord
Chancellor of Scotland after the Revolution of 1688. His grandson, Hugh, the
third and last earl, was the friend of Pope, who makes frequent and affectionate
mention of him in his epistles, and of St. John, Peterborough, and Arbuthnot,
and the other members of that brilliant circle. The earldom of Marchmont, the
viscounty of Blasonberrie and the barony of Polwarth, Redbraes, and Greenlaw
descended to his heirs male and their heirs male, and as the two sons of Earl
Hugh predeceased him the titles became dormant at his death. But a prior barony
of Polwarth, created in 1697, was made to descend to the heirs male of the first
peer and their heirs, and forty years after the death of Earl Hugh his grandson,
Hugh Scott of Harden, presented a petition to the House
of Lords claiming the title of Lord Polwarth, and his claim was admitted without
opposition. The extinct earldom of [p.3] Forfar was created for a youthful scion
of the Douglas family, whose life, if it had been prolonged, might have saved
the dukedom from extinction. He fell fighting under the royal banner at
Sheriffmuir, having received no fewer than sixteen broadsword wounds besides a
pistol shot in his knee. The earldom of Stirling, conferred in 1633 on Sir
William Alexander, an eminent statesman and poet, became dormant on the death
without issue of Henry, fifth earl, in 1739, and none of the claims which have
been preferred to the title have as yet been made good. Among the dormant but
not extinct peerages is the barony of Somerville, the title of an ancient and at
one time powerful Border family, which has not been claimed since 1870. The
barony of Cranstoun, also celebrated in ballads, tradition, and story since the
fifteenth century, became dormant on the death of the eleventh Lord Cranstoun in
1869. Heirs of both dignities are, however, believed to be in existence. The
last representative of the 'Bauld Rutherfords,' Earls of Teviot and Barons
Rutherford who bore a conspicuous part in Border forays, was the prototype of
the Master of Ravenswood in Sir Walter Scott's
tragic tale of the 'Bride of Lammermoor.' He died on the Continent without issue
in 1724. The earldom of Newark, which was conferred on the celebrated
Covenanting General David Leslie, who contributed to the victory of the
Parliamentary army at Marston Moor, and defeated the great Marquis of Montrose
at Philiphaugh, became extinct on the death of his son, the second lord, in
1694.
page 4
The most interesting of all the dormant or extinct titles are the peerages
forfeited in connection with the 'Fifteen' and the 'Forty-five,' when the last
desperate efforts were made to bring 'the auld Stewarts back again,' and gallant
gentlemen and noblemen not a few perilled and lost their lives and estates in
the Jacobite cause. One of the most noted of the noblemen who were 'spoiled of
their goods' and their hereditary honours in 1715 for their adherence to the old
Scottish dynasty was the eccentric Earl of Wintoun, the head of the ancient and
powerful house of Seton, immortalised by Sir Walter Scott
for their fidelity to the unfortunate Queen Mary. The earldom was revived in
1859 as a British peerage in favour of the Earl of Eglinton, but the extensive
estates of the Setons have passed into other hands. The Kingston peerage, which
was held by a cadet of the Seton family, was also forfeited in 1715, and has not
been restored. Viscount Kenmure, the chief of the Gordons of Galloway, whose
gallantry is commemorated in the well-known [p.4] ballad 'Kenmure's on and awa',
Willie,' was closely associated with the Earl of Wintoun in the Jacobite
insurrection, but, less fortunate than that nobleman, he forfeited his life as
well as his titles and lands for the sake of the Stewart cause. The estate was
bought. back by his widow, and the family titles were restored in 1826, but
became extinct on the death of the eleventh viscount in 1847. The Earl of
Nithsdale, the chief of the powerful Border house of Maxwell, was to have
suffered along with Viscount Kenmure, but escaped from the Tower through the
agency of his heroic wife. His estates were regained, but the earldom has not
been recovered. The titles and estates of the Keiths, hereditary Grand
Mareschals of Scotland from the twelfth century downwards, were also lost in the
fatal rising of 1715. A similar fate befell the Livingstons, descended from the
Chancellor of James II., who possessed the earldoms of Callendar and Linlithgow.
The gallant Seaforth, 'High Lord of Kintail,' chief of the powerful clan of the
Mackenzies, was exiled and forfeited for his share in 'the Fifteen.' The titles
and estates, however, were recovered, but the former became extinct on the death
of the last Earl of Seaforth in very painful circumstances in 1815. Another
great Jacobite noble who took part in that rebellion was the Earl of Panmure,
who was wounded and taken prisoner at the battle of Sheriffmuir, but was rescued
by his brother Harry Maule, worthy descendants both of that brave Sir Thomas
Maule, who in the War of Independence gallantly held out his castle of Brechin
against a powerful English army and lost his life in its defence. The earldom
has not been restored, but the Panmure estates were purchased from the York
Building Company by the earl's nephew, and are now in the possession of the Earl
of Dalhousie, the representative of the Maules in the female line.
THE ANCIENT EARLDOM OF MAR.
INTRODUCTION.
page 12
The battle, which was fought on the 24th of July, 1411, was long and fiercely
contested, and night alone separated the combatants. The Earl of Mar lost one
half of his force, and among the slain were Sir James Scrymgeour, Constable of
Dundee; Sir Alexander Ogilvie, the Sheriff of Angus, with his eldest son; Sir
Thomas Murray; Sir Robert Maule of Panmure; Sir Alexander Irvine of Drum; Leslie
of Balquhain, with six of his sons; Sir Alexander Straiton of Lauriston, and Sir
Robert Davidson, Provost of Aberdeen. The Earl of Mar and the survivors of his
little army were so exhausted with fatigue that they passed the night on the
battlefield, expecting the contest to be renewed next morning; but when the day
broke they found that Donald and the remains of his force had retired during the
night, leaving a thousand men, with the chiefs of Macintosh and Maclean, on the
battlefield, and, retreating through Ross, they gained the shelter of their
native fastnesses. 'It was a singular chance,' says Sir Walter
Scott, 'that brought against Donald, who might be
called the King of the Gaels, one whose youth had been distinguished as a leader
of these plundering bands; and no less strange that the Islander's claim to the
earldom of Ross should be traversed by one whose title to that of Mar was so
much more challengeable.' The battle of Harlaw was long remembered in Scotland
on account of the number and rank of the slain in Mar's force. It was
commemorated in contemporary verse: the 'Battle of Harlaw' is one of the old
ballads whose titles are given in the 'Complaint of Scotland' (1548). Mr. Laing,
in his 'Early Metrical Tales,' speaks of an edition printed in the year 1668, as
being 'in the curious library of old Robert Myles,' but no copy is now known to
exist of a date anterior to that which was published in Ramsay's 'Evergreen.' A
tune of the same name, adapted to the bagpipes, was long extremely popular in
Scotland.* [p.11] After the death of the Countess of Mar, the title and estates
should have devolved on the heir of line, Janet Keith, wife of Sir Thomas
Erskine, and great-granddaughter of Earl Gratney, but Earl Alexander, who had
only a life interest in the earldom, resigned it in 1426 into the hands of the
King, James I., and received a grant of the titles and estates to himself for
life, and after him to his natural son, Sir Thomas Stewart, and his lawful heirs
male. Earl Alexander died in 1435, and his son having pre-deceased him without
issue, the earldom, in terms of the recent charter, reverted to the Crown. Sir
Robert Erskine, the son of Sir Thomas and Lady Janet, claimed the earldom in
right of his mother, as second heir to the Countess Isabel, 22nd April, 1438,
before the Sheriff of Aberdeen, and, in the following November, was invested in
the estates. He assumed the title of Earl of Mar, and granted various charters
to vassals of the earldom; but, in 1449, James II. obtained a reduction of his
service before an assize of error, and took possession of the estates, no doubt
in order to carry out the favourite policy of himself and his father, of
weakening the dangerous power of the barons. It was subsequently conferred on
John, second son of James II., who was put to death in 1449 for alleged treason
against his brother, James III. The next possessor of the earldom was Cochrane,
one of the favourites of that monarch, who was hanged over the bridge at Lauder
in 1482. It was then granted, in 1486, to Alexander Stewart, Duke of Ross, a
younger son of James III. On his death it reverted to the Crown, and in
February, 1561-2, it was conferred by Queen Mary on her natural brother, Lord
James Stewart, afterwards the celebrated Regent; but he speedily resigned it,
preferring the dignity of Earl of Moray. The Queen then, in 1565, bestowed the
title on John, fifth Lord Erskine, the descendant and heir male of Sir Robert
Erskine, who had unsuccessfully claimed it a hundred and thirty years before.
From that period downwards the Mar honours have followed the varying fortunes of
the family of Erskine, one of the most illustrious of the historic houses of
Scotland. The greater part of the extensive estates which in ancient times
belonged to the earldom had, by [p.12] this time, passed into various hands, and
could not be recovered; but the remnant which still remained in the possession
of the Crown was gifted to the new earl.
THE EARLDOM OF MENTEITH.
INTRODUCTION.
page 15
THE district of Menteith, situated partly in Perthshire, partly in the county of
Stirling, is celebrated for the beauty of its scenery and its traditionary and
historical associations. It has been depicted by Sir Walter
Scott both in prose and verse—in the 'Lady of the
Lake' and in 'Rob Roy,' and the 'Legend of Montrose,' and is probably more
familiar to Englishmen, Americans, and Continental visitors than any other part
of Scotland. The earldom of Menteith, which takes its name from the district, is
one of the most ancient of the Scottish titles of nobility, and dates from the
beginning of the twelfth century, while the oldest English earldom—that of
Shrewsbury—is two hundred years, and the oldest barony—De Ros—is a hundred
and fifty years, later. This famous earldom has been borne successively by three
of the most distinguished families of Scotland—the Red Comyns. the royal
Stewarts, and the gallant Grahams—and is associated with a great part of the
most important and interesting events in the history of the country.
THE DOUGLASES.
INTRODUCTION.
page 35
IN the story of Scotland,' says Mr. Froude, 'weakness is nowhere; power, energy,
and will are everywhere;' and this national vigour, determined will, and
indomitable resolution seem to have culminated in the 'Doughty Douglases.' Their
stalwart and tough physical frames, and the strong, resolute, unbending
character of such men as 'William the Hardy,' 'Archibald the Grim,' and
'Archibald Bell-the-Cat,' the types of their race, eminently fitted them to be
'premier peers'— leaders of men. From the War of Independence down to the era
of the Reformation, no other family played such a conspicuous part in the
affairs of Scotland as the Douglases. They intermarried no less than eleven
times with the royal family of Scotland, and once with that of England. They
enjoyed the privilege of leading the van of the Scottish army in battle, of
carrying the crown at the coronation of the sovereign, and of giving the first
vote in Parliament. 'A Douglas received the last words of Robert Bruce. A
Douglas spoke the epitaph of John Knox. The Douglases were celebrated in the
prose of Froissart and the verse of Shakespeare. They have been sung by antique
Barbour and by Walter Scott,
by the minstrels of Otterburn and by Robert Burns.' A nameless poet who lived
four hundred years ago eulogised their trustiness and chivalry. Holinshed, in
the next century, speaks of their 'singular manhood, noble prowess, and majestic
puissance.' They espoused, at the outset, the patriotic side in the War of
Independence, and they contributed greatly to the crowning victory of
Bannockburn. They sent two hundred gentlemen of the name, with the heir of their
earldom, to die at Flodden. There was a time when they could raise thirty
thousand men, and they were for centuries the bulwarks of the Scottish borders
against our 'auld enemies of England.' They [p.35] have gathered their laurels
on many a bloody field in France, where they held the rank of princes, and in
Spain and in the Netherlands, as well as in England and Scotland, and—
page 40
Sir James continued to take a prominent part in the struggles of the patriots to
expel the English from the country, and was concerned in all the most perilous
enterprises of that protracted warfare. He defeated a detachment of the English
while marching from Bothwell into Ayrshire, under the command of Sir Philip
Mowbray, and he cleared the wooded and mountainous district of Ettrick Forest
and Tweeddale of the enemy. It was his skilful strategy that inflicted a
crushing defeat on the Lord of Lorn at the Pass of Brander, near Loch Awe, in
Argyleshire. On March 13, 1313, he captured the important fortress of Roxburgh
and took the garrison prisoners. [p.40] He commanded the left wing of the
Scottish army at the battle of Bannockburn. His chivalrous behaviour towards
Randolph, on the evening before that memorable conflict, shows the true nobility
of his character. Randolph had failed to notice the movement of a strong body of
horse under Sir Robert Clifford, who had been detached from the main army of the
English, for the purpose of strengthening the garrison of Stirling Castle, and
he being apprised of this movement by Bruce himself, had hastened at the head of
an inferior force to arrest their march. Douglas, with great difficulty, induced
King Robert to give him permission to go to the assistance of Randolph, whose
little band was environed by the enemy and placed in great jeopardy. But on
approaching the scene of conflict, he perceived that the English were falling
into disorder, and ordered his followers to halt. 'These brave men,' he said,
'have repulsed the enemy; let us not diminish their glory by claiming a share in
it.' 'When it is remembered,' says Sir Walter Scott,'
that Douglas and Randolph were rivals for fame, this is one of the bright
touches which illuminate and adorn the history of those ages of which blood and
devastation are the predominant characters.'
page 55
ARCHIBALD DOUGLAS of Galloway, third Earl, surnamed the 'Grim,' from his swart
complexion and stern expression of countenance. Before he succeeded to the
earldom he fought with great [p.54] gallantry in the wars both of France and
England. In 1356 he accompanied William, Earl of Douglas, to France, and was
taken prisoner at the battle of Poictiers (13th September), but made his escape
through a dexterous stratagem of Sir William Ramsay of Colluthie. In 1378 he
inflicted a signal defeat, near Melrose, on a body of English spearmen and
archers under Sir Thomas Musgrave. Before the battle began he knighted on the
field two of the King's sons, who were under his banner, along with his own son.
The conflict was keenly contested, but was quickly decided. Douglas, according
to his general custom, as Froissart mentions, when he found the fight becoming
hot, dismounted, and wielding a large two-handed sword, made such havoc among
the enemy that they gave way on all sides. Great numbers were slain, and
Musgrave and his son, with many other knights and squires, were taken prisoners.
After the Earl became the head of the family, he was regarded as the most
powerful subject in the kingdom. He was noted for his courage, firmness, and
sagacity, and not less for his pride. Hume of Godscroft says, 'He was a man
nothing inferior to any of his predecessors in any kind of virtue. In piety he
was singular through his whole life, and most religious according to those
times.' He founded the Collegiate Church of Bothwell, a part of which still
remains to attest its former magnificence. Godscroft affirms that the Earl had a
mind free from all ambition, but his conduct in regard to the marriage of his
daughter Marjory to David, Duke of Rothesay, the heir-apparent to the throne,
shows that he was scarcely entitled to that eulogium. The Prince was affianced
to the daughter of the Earl of March; but Douglas, jealous of the aggrandisement
of a rival noble, by the offer of a much more splendid dowry prevailed upon
Albany, the King's brother, to get that contract set aside, on the plea that the
sanction of the Estates had not been given to it, and to wed Rothesay to Marjory
Douglas. The result of this dishonourable transaction was highly injurious to
the happiness of the Prince, and the peace of the country. Notwithstanding, the
influence of the Earl was on the whole beneficial during the feeble reign of
Robert III.; and when he and the Queen-mother, Annabella Drummond, and the
venerable Bishop Traill of St. Andrews, all died, A.D. 1400, within a short time
of each other, according to Fordun it was commonly said throughout the kingdom
that the glory and honesty of Scotland were buried with these three noble
persons. The Earl was succeeded by his eldest son— [p.55] ARCHIBALD DOUGLAS,
fourth Earl, immortalised both by Shakespeare and Sir Walter
Scott. King Henry IV., Part I.; The Fair Maid of Perth;
and the drama of Homildon Hill.* He was called Tineman (Loseman), in consequence
of his having lost almost all the battles that he fought. 'It is true,' says
Godscroft, 'that no man was less fortunate, and it is no less true that no man
was more valorous.' He married Margaret, daughter of Robert III., and was even
more famous and powerful than his father had been in the government of the
kingdom. He was accused of having been accessory, along with the Duke of Albany,
to the death of the Duke of Rothesay, his brother-in-law, against whom his
resentment was said to have been roused by the neglect with which that
unfortunate prince treated his wife, the Earl's sister. (See THE EARLDOM OF
MENTEITH.) From his youth upwards Douglas showed great promptitude and activity
in defending Scotland against the inroads of the English. In the year 1400 he
gained a victory at East Linton over Hotspur and the Earl of March, who had
renounced his allegiance to the Scottish king in consequence of the unjust
treatment which he had received in the affair of his daughter's affiance to the
Duke of Rothesay. The Earl also successfully defended the Castle of Edinburgh
against the assault of Henry IV. on his invasion of Scotland, the last conducted
by an English monarch in person. In September, 1402, however, Douglas was
defeated and taken prisoner by Percy at Homildon Hill, near Wooler, where he
displayed great courage, but was guilty of very grave errors as a general. He
was wounded in four places and lost an eye in this battle, which was gained
entirely by the skill of the English archers and the mismanagement of the
Scottish leaders, many of whom were left on this fatal field.
page 68
The vast estates of the family were forfeited to the Crown, and divided among
the nobles who had contributed to the overthrow of this formidable house. Lord
Hamilton was rewarded with large grants of land for his opportune desertion of
his kinsman at Abercorn; Sir Walter Scott,
of Kirkurd and Buccleuch, was similarly recompensed for his services at the
battle of Arkinholme; but by far the greater share fell to the Earl of Angus,
who, though the representative of one of the chief branches of the Douglas
family, had sided with the King against its head. Hence arose the common saying,
referring to the different complexion of the two branches of house, that 'the
Red Douglas had put down the Black.' The Angus Douglases very soon pursued the
same ambitious policy as their kinsfolk of the elder branch, and became not much
less formidable to the independence of the Crown and the tranquillity of the
country.
THE ANGUS DOUGLASES.
INTRODUCTION.
page 74
The King on a time was discoursing at table of the personages of men, and by all
men's confession the prerogative was adjudged to the Earl of Angus. Sir Walter
Scott thus describes, in 'Marmion,' the aspect of the
stalwart 'Bell-the-Cat,' in his old age:—
'His giant form, like ruined tower,
Though fallen its muscles' brawny vaunt.
High-boned, and tall, and grim, and gaunt
Seem'd o'er the gaudy scene to lower;
His locks and beard in silver grew;
His eyebrows kept their sable hue.'* A courtier that was by, one Spens of [p.74]
Kilspindie,…cast in a word of doubting and disparaging: 'It is true,' said he,
'if all be good that is upcome,' meaning, if his action and valour were
answerable to his personage. This spoken openly, and coming to the Earl's ears,
offended him highly. It fell out after this, as the Earl was riding from Douglas
to Tantallon, that he sent all his company the nearest way, and he himself with
one only of his servants, having each of them a hawk on his fist, in hope of
better sport, took the way of Borthwick towards Fala, where lighting at the
brook at the west end of the town, they bathed their hawks. In the meantime this
Spens happened to come that way, whom the Earl espying said, 'Is not this such a
one, that made question of my manhood? I will go to him and give him a trial of
it, that we may know which of us is the better man.' 'No, my lord,' said his
servant, 'it is a disparagement for you to meddle with him.'…'I see,' said the
Earl, 'he hath one with him; it shall be thy part to grapple with him, whilst I
deal with his master.' So fastening their hawks they rode after him. 'What
reason had you,' said the Earl to him, 'to speak contemptuously of me at such a
time?' When the other would have excused the matter, he told him that would not
serve the turn. 'Thou art a big fellow and so am I; one of us must pay for it.'
The other answered, 'If it may be, no matter; there is never an earl in Scotland
but I will defend myself from him as well as I can.'…So, alighting from their
horses, they fought a certain space; but at last the Earl of Angus cut Spens'
thighbone asunder, so that he fell to the ground and died soon after.
page 80
ARCHIBALD DOUGLAS, sixth Earl of Angus, eldest son of George, Master of Douglas.
He was possessed of great personal attractions and showy accomplishments, but
according to Lord Dacre, 'he was childish, young, and attended by no wise
counsellors;' and besides he speedily exhibited the characteristic vices of his
family—lawless ambition and lust of power. He married with indiscreet haste,
in 1514, Margaret, widow of James IV., but disappointed in obtaining the
Regency, which he expected as the result of this alliance, he made it evident
that on his side the match was one of interest, not of affection, and showed
himself a careless and unfaithful husband. The Duke of Albany was appointed
Regent in the room of Margaret on her marriage, and compelled Angus and Margaret
to take refuge in England, where she was delivered of a daughter, the Lady
[p.79] Margaret Douglas, afterwards the mother of the unfortunate Darnley.
Angus, in a very heartless manner, left his wife before she had completely
recovered, and returned to Scotland to pursue his selfish intrigues. His
scandalous desertion of his wife in these circumstances began that alienation of
feeling in her mind which ultimately led her to obtain a divorce from the Earl
in 1525. On the departure of the Duke of Albany for France, in 1516, Angus was
appointed a member of the Council of Regency, and soon acquired great ascendancy
in the kingdom. In 1520 the Hamiltons and other powerful western families
assembled at Edinburgh for the purpose of seizing the Earl, but they were
completely defeated, as we have seen, and driven out of the city. In the
following year, however, on the return of Albany, Angus was compelled to flee to
England, and subsequently passed into France as a voluntary exile. He returned
to Scotland in 1524, and became the head of the English party among the nobles
there, and by his ambitious and violent proceedings kept the country in a state
of disorder and almost anarchy. He obtained possession of the person of the
King, then in his fourteenth year, became Lord Chancellor, and filled all the
offices of the State either with members or the supporters of his house. He
raised the power of the Douglases to such a height as seriously to endanger both
the independence of the Crown and the liberties of the people. An old chronicler
says, 'There dared no man strive at law with a Douglas or a Douglas man, for if
he did he was sure to get the worst of the lawsuit.' 'And,' he adds, 'although
Angus travelled through the country under pretence of punishing thieves,
robbers, and murderers, there were no malefactors so great as those who rode in
his own train.' The young King himself was eager to escape from the thraldom in
which he was held, but Angus succeeded in defeating two attempts made, with the
King's knowledge and approbation, to set him at liberty—one by Sir Walter
Scott of Buccleuch, near Melrose; the other by the Earl
of Lennox, at Almond Bridge, near Linlithgow, in which, to the great grief of
James, the Earl lost his life. At length, in July, 1528, the King succeeded in
making his escape, in disguise, from Falkland Palace, where he had been
virtually kept a prisoner, and rode to Stirling Castle, which had been prepared
for his reception. Shortly after a meeting of Parliament was held, at which
Angus and his brothers were declared rebels and traitors, and their estates
forfeited. The King was baffled in his attempts to reduce the castles of Douglas
and Tantallon, but Angus [p.80] and his brothers were driven out of Scotland,
and once more took refuge in England. He received a pension of a thousand marks
from Henry VIII., and to his great disgrace made several hostile incursions
across the Borders against his own countrymen. He remained fifteen years in
exile, and was not permitted to return to Scotland until after the death of
James, when his diminished power and the altered state of parties rendered his
presence less formidable to the public tranquillity. His attainder and that of
his brothers was removed by Parliament, and they were restored to their rank and
possessions in 1543.
page 81
Angus collected his retainers and vassals to revenge these outrages on the
ruthless invaders, and having been joined by Sir Walter
Scott of Buccleuch at the head of his clan, and by
Norman Lesley with a body of men from Fife, he encountered them on a moor near
the village of Ancrum, in Roxburghshire. The English were completely defeated
with the loss of eight hundred men, among whom were Sir Ralph Evers and Sir
Brian Latoun, and a thousand were taken prisoners. King Henry, on receiving news
of this defeat, was furious at Angus, and vowed that he would inflict signal
[p.81] vengeance on him for his ingratitude and perfidy. The Earl replied to the
threats of the irate monarch in characteristic terms. 'Is our brother-in-law,'
he said, 'offended that I, as a good Scotsman, have avenged my ravaged country
and the defaced tombs of my ancestors upon Ralph Evers? They were better men
than he, and I was bound to do no less. And will he take my life for that?
Little knows King Henry the skirts of Kirnetable. Kirnetable, or Cairntable, is
a mountainous tract of country at the head of Douglasdale. An Afghan chief
replied in similar terms to a threat of Sir Henry Lawrence that he would march
an army into his territory, and punish his people for the murder of a British
traveller. 'The roads in my country,' he said, 'are bad for armies.'* I can keep
myself there against all his English host.'
THE KEITHS.
INTRODUCTION.
page 100
SIR ROBERT DE KEITH, the fourth in descent from Philip, the Great Marischal, was
one of the most celebrated knights of his day. In the year 1300 he was appointed
Justiciary of the country beyond the Forth, and in 1305 was chosen one of the
representatives of the barons, to consult respecting the government of the
kingdom after the death of Wallace. Three years later he repaired to the
standard of Bruce, and distinguished himself at the battle of Inverury, where
Comyn of Badenoch, the deadly enemy of the patriot King, was defeated. As a
reward for his signal services in this conflict, Sir Robert received a grant of
several estates in Aberdeenshire, along with a royal residence called Hall
Forest—a donation which led, as in the case of the Gordons and Frasers, to the
removal of the family to the north, where they ultimately had their chief seat
and estates. Sir Robert de Keith rendered important service to the patriotic
cause throughout the War of Independence, and contributed not a little to the
crowning victory of Bannockburn. He was despatched by Bruce along with Sir James
Douglas to reconnoitre the English army on their march, and to bring him
confidential information respecting their numbers and equipments; and to him was
entrusted the important duty of attacking and dispersing the English archers,
whose deadly clothyard shafts so often overwhelmed the Scottish spearmen. At the
head of a small body of cavalry, Sir Robert, making a circuit to the right,
assailed the formidable bowmen in flank, cut them down in great numbers, and
drove them off the field. The effect of this manoeuvre is portrayed in spirited
terms by Sir Walter Scott in
his 'Lord of the Isles.' After describing the position of the Scottish army, and
the manner in which Bruce had drawn up the different [p.100] divisions, with the
right wing under Edward Bruce, protected by the broken bank and deep ravine of
the Bannock on their flank, the poet goes on to say—
page 124
Sir Robert's sister, ANNE MURRAY KEITH, was a delightful specimen of the
Scottish gentlewoman of the last century. She was an intimate friend of Sir Walter
Scott, and sat to him for the portrait of Mrs. Bethune
Baliol, which is not surpassed by anything of the kind in his writings. Like her
brother, she was celebrated for her colloquial talents. Sir Walter
was indebted to her not only for the outlines of the pathetic story of the
'Highland Widow,' but also for many racy anecdotes of the olden time, and quaint
and pithy phrases, which he embodied in his novels. When 'Waverley' appeared,
the shrewd old lady at once detected the author of the anonymous tale; and next
time Scott called upon her she told him in direct terms
that she was sure it was his production. Sir Walter
attempted to repel the charge in his usual manner, but was silenced by the
rejoinder, 'Gae wa' wi' ye; do ye think I dinna ken my ain groats among other
folks' kail?' Mr. Kirkpatrick Sharp says, 'Miss Anne Keith resided many years in
Edinburgh (51, George Street), keeping house with her eldest sister, Miss Jenny,
both universally loved and respected. Sir Walter Scott
told me that Miss Anne Keith amused herself in the latter years of her life by
translating Macpherson's "Ossian" into verse.' She was the authoress
also of a song entitled 'Oscar's Ghost,' inserted in Johnson's 'Scots' Musical
Museum.' Scott thus notices the death of his 'excellent
old friend,' as he terms her, in 1818: 'She enjoyed all her spirits and her
excellent faculties till within two days of her death, when she was seized with
a feverish complaint which eighty- [p.124] two years were not calculated to
resist. Much tradition, and of the very best kind, has died with this excellent
old lady, one of the few persons whose spirits and cleanliness, and freshness of
mind and body, made old age lovely and desirable.'
THE SETONS.
INTRODUCTION.
page 127
SECKER DE SEYE, son of Dugdale de Sey, by a daughter of De Quincy, Earl of
Winchester, the founder of this illustrious family, was of Norman descent, like
most of the progenitors of the other great houses of Scotland, and settled in
Scotland in the days of David I., from whom he obtained a grant of lands in East
Lothian, to which he gave his own name—Seytun, the dwelling of Sey. His son,
ALEXANDER DE SETUNE, or SETON, was proprietor of the estate of Winchburgh, in
Linlithgowshire, as well as of Seton and Wintoun, in East Lothian, and his son,
PHILIP DE SETUNE, received a grant of these lands from William the Lion in 1169.
The fourth in descent from him was the noble patriot SIR CHRISTOPHER, or
CHRISTALL SEYTON, who married Lady Christian Bruce, sister of King Robert Bruce,
and widow of Gratney, Earl of Mar. The 'Gallant Seton,' as he is termed by the
author of the Lord of the Isles, was one of the earliest and most strenuous
supporters of his illustrious brother-in-law, and was present at his coronation
at Scone, 27th of March, [p.127] 1306. At the Battle of Methven, on the 13th of
June following, Bruce, who had ventured his person in that conflict like a
knight of romance, was unhorsed by Sir Philip Mowbray, but was remounted by Sir
Christopher, who greatly signalised himself in the conflict by his personal
valour. Sir Christopher is said to have been a man of gigantic stature. His
two-handed sword, measuring four feet nine inches, is in the possession of
George Seton, Esq., of the Register Office, representative of the Setons of
Cariston.* He made his escape from that fatal field, and shut himself up in
Lochdoon Castle, in Ayrshire, where he was betrayed to the English, through
means (according to Barbour) of one Macnab, 'a disciple of Judas,' in whom the
unfortunate knight reposed entire confidence. Sir Christopher was conveyed to
Dumfries, where he was tried, condemned, and executed; and his brother John
shared the same fate at Newcastle. Another brother, named ALEXANDER SETON,
succeeded to the estates of the family, and adhered to their patriotic
principles, for his name is appended, along with those of other leading nobles,
to the famous letter to the Pope, in 1320, asserting the independence of
Scotland. He was rewarded by King Robert Bruce with liberal grants of land,
including the manor of Tranent, forfeited by the powerful family of De Quincy,
Earls of Winchester and High Constables of Scotland, from whom, as we have seen,
he was descended in the female line. This Sir Alexander has been immortalised in
the pages of Sir Walter Scott
for the conspicuous part which he took in the defence of his country against the
invasion of the English after the death of Robert Bruce. He was Governor of the
town of Berwick when it was besieged by Edward III. of England in 1333. Though
the garrison was neither numerous nor well appointed they made a gallant defence,
and succeeded in sinking and destroying by fire a great part of the English
fleet. The siege was then converted into a blockade, and as the supplies at
length began to fail and starvation was imminent, the Governor agreed to
capitulate by a certain day unless succours were received before that time, and
gave hostages, among whom was his own son, Thomas, for the fulfilment of these
stipulations.
page 136
The Earl fought with great gallantry at the barricades of Preston, but was at
last obliged to surrender along with the other insurgents, and was carried a
prisoner to London, and confined in the Tower. He was brought to trial before
the House of Lords, 15th March, 1716, and defended himself with considerable
ingenuity. The High Steward, Lord Cowper, having overruled his objections to the
indictment with some harshness, 'I hope,' was the Earl's rejoinder, 'you will do
me justice, and not make use of "Cowperlaw," as we used to say in our
country—hang a man first and then judge him.' On the refusal of his entreaty
to be heard by counsel, he replied— 'Since your lordship will not allow me
counsel, I don't know nothing.' He was of course found guilty, and condemned to
be beheaded on Tower Hill. 'When waiting his fate in the Tower,' says Sir Walter
Scott, 'he made good use of his mechanical skill,
sawing through with great ingenuity the bars of the windows of his prison,
through which he made his escape' See ADDENDA, vol. ii., p. 426.* He ended his
motley life at Rome, in 1749, aged seventy, and with him terminated the main
branch of the long and illustrious line of the Setons. Male cadets of this
family, however, came by intermarriage to represent the great historic families
of Huntly and Eglinton, besides the ducal house of Gordon, now extinct, and the
Earls of Sutherland, whose heiress married the Marquis of Stafford, afterwards
created Duke of Sutherland. The earldoms of Wintoun and Dunfermline, the
viscounty of Kingston, and the other Seton titles were forfeited for the
adherence of their possessors to the Stewart dynasty, and have never been
restored; but the late Earl of Eglinton was, in 1840, served heir-male general
of the family, and, in 1859, was created Earl of Wintoun in the peerage of the
United Kingdom.
page 139
The York Buildings Company ultimately became bankrupt, and in 1779 the Wintoun
estate was again exposed for sale. As the property was of great extent, it was
thought that it would be difficult [p.138] to find a person able to purchase the
whole, and it was therefore, by authority of the Court of Session, put up in
lots. The first two of these, including the famous old Seton House, the chief
residence of the family, were purchased by Mr. Alexander Mackenzie, W.S., who
was common agent for the creditors of the company. Mr. Mackenzie was succeeded
as a common agent in 1789, on the nomination of the company, by Mr. Walter
Scott, W.S., who at that time had as his apprentice his
son, the great novelist and poet.* No objection was made at the time to the
legality of this purchase on the part either of the Court or of the creditors;
but thirteen years afterwards an action of reduction was brought at the instance
of the company. The Court of Session gave judgment in Mr. Mackenzie's favour,
but their decision was reversed on appeal to the House of Lords. The Company not
only raised the general question that the purchase was a breach of trust on the
part of the common agent, but they brought special and strong charges against
Mr. Mackenzie's conduct in the transaction. They alleged that the manner in
which the previous rental was made up was not satisfactory, and that the
knowledge which Mr. Mackenzie had obtained in his official capacity of the
condition and details of the property had been of material advantage to him.
They further averred that the sale had been hurried through in an irregular and
improper manner. According to the custom of that time the sale was advertised to
take place 'between the hours of four and six afternoon,' a latitude allowed for
the 'want of punctuality in the judge, the clerks, and the other persons
immediately concerned,' so that five o'clock came to be considered the proper
and real hour. On this occasion, however, Lord Monboddo, the Ordinary, before
whom the judicial sale was to take place, having received a hint to be punctual,
arrived at the Parliament House and took his seat upon the bench exactly as the
clock struck four. Proceedings commenced immediately, and the first and second
lots, having been put up successively, were knocked down to Mr. Mackenzie
without waiting the outrunning of the half-hour sand-glass, as required by the
Articles of sale. Several persons who had intended to offer for these lots
found, to their great disappointment and chagrin, on their arrival at the Court
that the sale was over. These allegations do not appear to have been taken into
consideration by the House of Lords, since the illegality of the conduct of the
agent was regarded as sufficient to vitiate the transaction. [p.139] The lands
in question were again exposed for sale, and were purchased by the Earl of
Wemyss in 1798, at three times the price that had been paid by Mr. Mackenzie.
The decision of the House of Lords unfortunately came too late to save from
destruction the fine old castle or palace of Seton, as it was called, owing to
its having been frequently the residence of royalty. It occupied a commanding
position on the coast of the Firth of Forth, closely adjoining the battlefield
of Prestonpans. The date of its erection is unknown, but it had undergone at
various times considerable alterations and enlargements. The building consisted
of three extensive fronts of freestone, with a triangular court in the middle.
The front to the south-east—which appears to have been built early in the
reign of Queen Mary—contained, beside other apartments, a noble hall and
drawing-room. The state apartments, which were very spacious, consisted of three
great rooms forty feet high, and their furniture was covered with crimson velvet
laced with gold. There were also two large galleries filled with pictures.
Altogether, the mansion was regarded as the most magnificent and elegantly
furnished house in Scotland.
THE CRICHTONS OF FRENDRAUGHT.
INTRODUCTION.
page 175
THE Crichtons are an ancient Scottish family, but their origin is unknown. They
derived their surname from the barony of Crichton, in the county of Edinburgh. A
Thurstanus de Crichton is one of the witnesses to the charter founding the Abbey
of Holyrood, in the days of David I., and a Thomas de Crichton was one of the
barons who swore fealty to Edward I. in 1296. The family, however, appear to
have remained in the rank of minor barons, taking no prominent part in public
affairs till near the middle of the fifteenth century, when they suddenly rose
to almost supreme power in the State through the great abilities and political
address of Sir William Crichton, the famous Chancellor of Scotland during the
minority of James II. This able and accomplished but unscrupulous statesman held
in succession the offices of Chamberlain to the King, Master of the Household,
and Governor of Edinburgh Castle before he became Chancellor and Lord Crichton.
His rivalry with Sir Alexander Livingstone, the King's Governor, his feuds with
the great house of Donglas, and the prominent part which he took in the hasty
execution of Earl William and his brother in 1440, are familiar to all the
readers of Scottish history. In spite of various reverses of fortune, the
Chancellor retained the confidence and favour of his sovereign until his death
in 1454, shortly before the complete success of his policy in the triumph of the
King over the Earl of Douglas and the total ruin of the potent family of the
'Black Douglascs.' The cousin of the Chancellor was High Admiral of Scotland,
and no doubt through his influence was created Earl of Caithness in 1452. Lord
Crichton's grandson was the son-in-law of James II., and is said to have seduced
the sister of James III. in revenge for that monarch having dishonoured his bed.
He took part in the unsuccessful rebellion of the [p.175] Duke of Albany against
his brother King James, and was in consequence attainted for treason, and
stripped of his titles and estates. His magnificent castle of Crichton, on the
banks of the north Tyne, which Sir Walter Scott
describes in most picturesque terms in his poem of 'Marmion,' was conferred upon
Ramsay of Balmain, and afterwards became the seat of the Hepburns. On the
forfeiture of the notorious Earl of Bothwell, Crichton fell to the Crown, and
was granted to Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, who was a thorn in the side of
his kinsman, King James VI. It has since passed through the hands of several
proprietors.
THE MACKENZIES OF SEAFORTH.
INTRODUCTION.
page 184
as Sir Walter Scott complained
sixty years ago; Sanquhar Castle is reduced to a fragment of an ugly, blackened
'keep;' and of Frendraught Tower, the scene of the fatal tragedy, which stood in
a deep and narrow glen, amid old and gloomy trees, not a vestige remains.
page 196
FRANCIS HUMBERSTON MACKENZIE, twenty-first chief of the Mackenzies, who
was created a peer of Great Britain in 1797 by the title of Lord Seaforth and
Baron Mackenzie of Kintail. Under this nobleman, who was in many respects a very
able and remarkable man, occurred the predicted downfall of this great
historical house, which was attended with circumstances as singular as they were
painful. 'The last Baron of Kintail, Francis, Lord Seaforth,' says Sir Walter
Scott, 'was a nobleman of extraordinary talents, who
must have made for himself a lasting reputation had not his political exertions
been checked by painful natural infirmities.' Though a severe attack of scarlet
fever when he was in his twelfth year deprived him of hearing, and for a time
almost of speech, he was distinguished for his extensive attainments as well as
for his great intellectual activity. He took a lively interest in all questions
of art and science, and especially in natural history, and displayed both his
liberality and his love of art by his munificence to Sir Thomas Lawrence in the
early straits and struggles of that great painter, and also by his patronage of
other artists. Before his elevation to the peerage, Lord Seaforth represented
Rossshire in Parliament for a good many years, and was afterwards nominated
Lord-Lieutenant of that county. During the revolutionary war with France he
raised a splendid regiment of Rossshire Highlanders, the second that had been
raised among his clan, of which he was appointed lieutenant-colonel, and he
ultimately attained the rank of lieutenant-general in the army. He held for six
years the office of Governor of Barbadoes, and by his firmness and even-handed
justice he succeeded in putting an end to the practice of slave-killing, which
was at that time not unfrequent in the island, and [p.196] was deemed by the
planters a venial offence to be punished only by a small fine. He held high
office also in Demerara and Berbice.
THE MACKENZIES OF SEAFORTH.
INTRODUCTION.
page 196
Lord Seaforth was the happy father of four sons and six daughters, all of high
promise, and it seemed as if he were destined to raise the illustrious house of
which he was the head to a height of honour and power greater than it had ever
yet attained. But the closing years of this accomplished nobleman were darkened
by calamities and sufferings of the severest kind. The mismanagement of his
estates, combined with his personal extravagance, involved him in inextricable
embarrassments. When he exposed to sale the fine estate of Lochalsh his tenants
unanimously addressed to him the pointed and significant remonstrance, 'Reside
amongst us and we will pay your debts.' His lordship's improvidence, however,
rendered this expedient hopeless. A part of the barony of Kintail, the 'giftland'
of the house, was next disposed of, a step which the Seaforth clansmen in vain
endeavoured to avert by offering to buy in the land for him that it might not
pass from the family. In deference to this strong feeling on the part of the
clan, the intended sale of the estate was deferred for about two years. The Earl
had previous to this time been bereaved of three of his sons, but
one—Frederick William, a young man of marked ability and eloquence—still
survived, and was the representative in Parliament of his native county. He,
too, passed away in 1814, unmarried, like his brothers. The heart-broken father
lingered on a few months longer, and died 11th January, 1815, in his sixtieth
year; and thus, as Sir Walter Scott
expressed it,—
page 197
This prophecy was well known in the north long before its fulfilment, and was
certainly not made after the event. 'It connected,' says Lockhart in his 'Life
of Sir Walter Scott,' 'the
fall of the house of Seaforth not only with the appearance of a deaf Caberfae,
but with the contemporaneous appearance of various different physical
misfortunes in several of the other great Highland chiefs, all of which are said
to have actually occurred within the memory of the generation that has not yet
passed away.' Life of Sir Walter Scott,
iii. pp. 318, 319.* These peculiarities were, that there would at that time be
four great lairds, of whom one would be buck-toothed, another hare-lipped,
another half-witted, and the fourth a stammerer. It is asserted that
contemporaneous with the deaf Caberfae were Sir Hector Mackenzie of Gairloch,
who was the buck-toothed laird, Chisholm of Chisholm the hare-lipped, Grant of
Grant the half-witted, and Macleod of Raasay the stammerer.|R†|r
page 198
On the death of Lord Seaforth his titles became extinct. The chiefship of the
clan passed to Mackenzie of Allengrange, but the remaining estates of the
family, with all their burdens and responsibilities, devolved upon Lord
Seaforth's eldest daughter, MARY ELIZABETH FREDERICA MACKENZIE, born in 1783,
widow of Vice-Admiral Sir Samuel Hood. She took for her second husband (21st
May, 1817) the Hon. James Alexander Stewart of Glasserton, a cadet of the
Galloway family. Sir Walter Scott,
who held Lady Hood in high esteem, expressed his sympathy for her on the loss of
her husband, father, and brothers in the well-known lines—
THE HAMILTONS.
INTRODUCTION.
page 216
It was to the Marquis of Hamilton that Charles entrusted, as his High
Commissioner, the arduous and, indeed, hopeless task of persuading the
Covenanters to abandon their League and Covenant, and to support him in his
contest with the English Parliament. Hamilton's policy was timorous and
trimming; his attempts to overreach the Presbyterians were easily seen through
and foiled; and, in spite alike of his promised concessions and his threats,
they persevered in their determination to overthrow the Episcopal system, and to
establish Presbyterianism in its room. And, finally, their distrust of Charles
and his ministers, and their sympathy with the Parliamentary party, induced them
to send an army to the assistance of the patriots in their contest with the
King. Montrose had recommended, but in vain, that a prompt and vigorous policy
should be adopted, and had predicted that the result of Hamilton's timid
counsels would be that 'the traitors would be allowed time to raise their
armies, and all would be lost.' Montrose's enthusiastic admirer and biographer,
Sheriff Napier, broadly accuses Hamilton of treachery to the cause of his royal
master. There is no reason, however, to believe that the luckless noble, who had
shortly before been created a duke, was guilty of anything worse than weakness,
vacillation, and trickery. He was ambitious of an office which he was not
competent to fill, and undertook a task which it was greatly beyond his
abilities to perform. His wavering, trimming policy earned him the distrust of
both parties, and contributed not a little to the ruin of the royal cause. King
Charles was so much provoked by his failure, that he sent the Duke a prisoner to
Pendennis Castle in Cornwall, and afterwards to St. Michael's Mount, where he
was confined till the end of April, 1646. After the downfall of the monarchy,
the Duke exerted all his influence to promote the 'Engagement' entered into by
the Scottish Parliament to raise an army for the relief of the King. He was
appointed commander-in-chief of the hastily-levied, imperfectly-armed, and
ill-disciplined body of troops, fourteen thousand strong, [p.216] which marched
into England for this purpose, but were defeated at Preston, and ultimately
compelled to surrender. The Duke was tried (February 6th, 1649), as Earl of
Cambridge and an English subject, on the charge of having levied war against the
people of England, and was found guilty and executed on the 9th of March. Sir Walter
Scott makes John Gudyill, the butler at Tillietudlem,
say of the Duke that he 'lost his heart before he lost his head;' and that his
brother and successor was 'but wersh parritch, neither gude to fry, boil, nor
sup cauld.'
THE CAMPBELLS OF ARGYLL.
INTRODUCTION.
page 229
The first Lords of Lorne were the M'Dougalls, descended from Dugal, youngest son
of the mighty Somerled; but, unfortunately for themselves and their country,
they embraced the side of the English [p.229] invaders in the Scottish War of
Independence, and after a desperate struggle, in which they oftener than once
put the life of Robert Bruce in imminent peril, they were stripped of their
power and their extensive territory; and now the ruined stronghold of Dunolly,
and an estate yielding only £1,300 a year, are all that remain to their present
lineal representative. The M'Dougalls have, however, in later times, generation
after generation, earned distinction in the service of their country. The heir
of the family, nearly seventy years ago, fell fighting gallantly in Spain, under
the Duke of Wellington —a death, as Sir Walter Scott
remarks, worthy of his ancestors.
page 253
He was born in October, 1678. On the very day on which his grandfather was
executed, in 1685, the boy fell from a window in the upper flat of Lethington,
the seat of his grandmother, the Duchess of Lauderdale, without receiving any
injury—an incident which was regarded as an omen of his future greatness. Lord
Macaulay declares that this nobleman was renowned as a warrior and as an orator,
as the model 'of every courtly grace, and as the judicious patron of arts and
letters. Sir Walter Scott
says, 'Few names deserve more honourable mention than that of John, Duke of
Argyll and Greenwich. His talent as a statesman and soldier was generally
admitted; he was not without ambition, but "without the [p.252] illness
that oft attends it"—without the irregularity of thought and aim which
often excites great men in his peculiar situation (for it was a very peculiar
one) to grasp the means of raising themselves to power at the risk of throwing a
kingdom into confusion. He was alike free from the ordinary vices of
statesmen—falsehood and dissimulation; and from those of warriors—inordinate
and ardent thirst after self-aggrandisement.' 'Ian Roy Bean'—Red John, the
Warrior —as the Highlanders termed him, was very dear to his countrymen, who
were justly proud of his military and political talents, and grateful for the
ready zeal with which he asserted the rights of his native country. Duke John
held several high offices in his native land, and in 1705 was appointed Lord
High Commissioner to the Scottish Parliament for the purpose of carrying through
the Act of Union. For his services on this occasion he was rewarded with a
British peerage. The next year he joined the British army under Marlborough in
Flanders, and served in four campaigns. He distinguished himself at the battles
of Ramilies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, and all the principal sieges carried out
by the great general, and rose to the rank of lieutenant-general. On the
dismissal of Marlborough, with whom he was continually at variance, Argyll was
sent to take charge of both civil and military affairs in Spain, but finding
that he had been only made a tool of by the Tory ministry, who were actively
carrying on negotiations for the peace of Utrecht, the Duke, thoroughly
disgusted, threw up his command and returned home, with the firm resolution of
joining the Opposition. His vehement and eloquent attacks on the Government did
no small injury to the Tory and Jacobite cause. On the death of Queen Anne he
suddenly presented himself, uninvited, along with the Duke of Somerset, in the
Council-chamber, and in conjunction with Shrewsbury, frustrated the plans of
Bolingbroke and the Jacobites for the accession of the Pretender to the throne.
He was one of the Lords Justices appointed by George I. to act as Regents before
his arrival in England, and was subsequently appointed Groom of the Stole to the
Prince of Wales, Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in Scotland, Governor of
Minorca, a Privy Councillor, and a Colonel of the Royal Regiment of Horse
Guards. When the Earl of Mar raised the standard of rebellion in 1715, the Duke
of Argyll was sent down to oppose him. By dint of great activity and zeal he
succeeded in collecting a force of 3,300 men, with which he kept in check the
Jacobite army of more than three times that number. The hostile armies
encountered at Sheriffmuir, [p.253] near Dunblane (15th Nov., 1715), with
doubtful result. Argyll himself broke the left wing of the rebels, but his left
wing was in turn worsted by the clans. The battle in itself was therefore as
indecisive as the satirical ballad represents—
page 254
The services which the Duke rendered to the house of Hanover at this critical
period were probably too great to be either acknowledged or repaid, and the
extraordinary popularity which he enjoyed among his countrymen was of itself
fitted to make him the object of jealousy at Court. His independent conduct,
too, and somewhat haughty mode of expressing himself in Parliament and acting in
public, were ill calculated, as Sir Walter Scott
remarks, to attract royal favour. His opposition to the Bill which proposed to
deprive the city of Edinburgh of its rights and privileges, on account of the
Porteous mob, gave great offence to the King and his counsellers. Although he
was therefore always respected and often employed, he was not a favourite of
George II., his consort, or his ministers, and in 1716 he had become so
obnoxious to them that he was deprived of all his offices, and went into violent
opposition. Three years later he again joined the Ministry at a great crisis,
and was appointed High Steward of the Household, and was created Duke of
Greenwich. He was subsequently nominated Master-General of the Ordnance,
Governor of Portsmouth, and a Field-Marshal. With the assistance of his politic
brother, Lord Islay, in spite of all the efforts of the Government to thwart
him, he obtained in 1725 the complete control of Scottish affairs, and might
have been termed 'King Campbell,' as truly as was his ancestor, the great
Marquis. The readers of the 'Heart of Midlothian' will remember the description
there given of the part which the Duke took against the Ministry [p.254] on the
occasion of the famous Porteous riot, in 1737. Three years later he was once
more dismissed from all his employments. On the downfall of Walpole, who
mortally hated him, says Lord Hervey, and whom he mortally hated, the Duke, in
1742, accepted the office of Commander-in-Chief, but resigned it in a fortnight,
in consequence of the appointment of the Marquis of Tweeddale as Secretary of
State for Scotland. His Grace now retired from public life, and devoted himself
to the improvement of his estates, but did not long survive. He died on the 4th
of October, 1743. The Duke possessed a cultivated and poetical taste, and he is
said to have been the author of the well-known Scottish song, 'Bannocks of
Barley-Meal.'
page 255
Duke Archibald was a great favourite with Sir Robert Walpole, and governed his
native country as representative of that powerful minister with such authority
as to be styled 'The King of Scotland.' Under his 'liberal and partial
patronage' the Campbells attained to a degree of wealth and power superior to
that of any other surname in Scotland. On the abolition, in 1747, of the
hereditary jurisdictions of the great landed proprietors, Argyll received £21,000
as compensation for the office of Justiciary of Argyllshire and the Western
Islands, the Sheriffship of Argyll, and the Regality of Campbell. The Duke
remained at the head of affairs in Scotland till his death, which took place
while he was sitting in his chair at dinner, April 15th, 176I, in the
seventy-ninth year of his age. It was he who pulled down the noble old Gothic
castle of Inverary, which, Sir Walter Scott
says, 'with its varied outline, embattled walls, towers, and outer and inner
courts, so far as picturesque is concerned, presented an aspect much more
striking than the present massive and uniform mansion.' To meet the great
expense of the new structure, the Duke sold the fine estate of Duddingston, near
Edinburgh, which came from his grandmother, the Duchess of Lauderdale.
THE CAMPBELLS OF BREADALBANE.
INTRODUCTION.
page 264
The legend turns on an incident which, as Sir Walter Scott
remarks, was not unlikely to happen in more instances than one when crusaders
abode long in the Holy Land, and their disconsolate dames received no tidings of
their fate. A story very similar in circumstances is told of one of the
Braidshaighs, the ancient lords of Haigh Hall, in Lancashire, now possessed by
the Earl of Crawford, their descendant in the female line. The particulars are
represented in a stained-glass window in that old manor-house, and are narrated
at length in the family genealogy. Sir Walter mentions
that he adopted the idea of the tale of 'The Betrothed' from the Haigh Hall
tradition.
page 275
The honours thus heaped upon him by the reigning sovereign failed to
secure his fidelity when the trial came. After the Revolution of 1688 he gave in
his adherence to William and Mary, though there was no end to 'the turns and
doublings of his course' during the year 1689 and the earlier part of 1690. But
after the battle of the Boyne had apparently ruined the Jacobite cause, the Earl
became more steady in his support of the new sovereigns; and, as it was at this
time his interest, as he affirmed, to promote the stability of the Government
and the tranquillity of the country, it was resolved by the Ministry to employ
the Earl to treat with the Jacobite chiefs, and a sum of fifteen thousand pounds
was placed at his disposal, in order to induce them to swear allegiance to the
reigning monarchs. It was an unwise and unfortunate selection. Breadalbane's
reputation for honesty did not stand high, and he was 'suspected of intending to
cheat both the clans and the King.' He alleged that the Macdonalds of Glencoe
had ravaged his lands and driven away his cattle; and when their chief, M'Ian,
appeared along with the other Jacobite heads of the clans, at a conference which
he held with them, at his residence in Glenorchy, the Earl, who ordinarily bore
himself with the solemn dignity of a Castilian grandee, forgot his public
character, forgot the laws of hospitality, and, with angry reproaches and
menaces, demanded reparation for the herds which had been driven from his lands
by M'Ian's [p.275] followers. M'Ian was seriously apprehensive of some personal
outrage, and was glad to get safe back to his own glen.' His pride had been
wounded; he had no motive to induce him to accept of the terms offered by the
Government. He was well aware that he had little chance of receiving any portion
of the money which was to be distributed among the Jacobite chiefs, for his
share of that money would scarcely meet Breadalbane's demands for compensation.
M'Ian, therefore, used all his influence to dissuade his brother chiefs from
accepting the proposals made to them by the agent of the English ministers; and
Breadalbane found the negotiations indefinitely protracted by the arts of the
man who had long been a thorn in his side. He contrived, however, in one way or
other, either to spend or to pocket the funds entrusted to him by the
Government. 'Some chiefs,' says Sir Walter Scott,
'he gratified with a share of the money; others with good words; others he kept
quiet by threats. And when he was asked by Lord Nottingham to account for the
money put into his hands to be distributed among the chiefs, he returned this
laconic answer, "My lord, the money is spent; the Highlands are quiet: and
this is the only way of accounting among friends."'
THE LESLIES.
INTRODUCTION.
page 295
There is reason to believe that the fate of the Baron of Balquhain, who
commanded the van of Mar's army in this famous battle, was before the mind of
Sir Walter Scott when he
depicted one of the most thrilling scenes he ever wrote—the description of old
Elspeth's talk and ballad in 'The Antiquary' respecting the fall of the Earl of
Glenallan in that sanguinary encounter, and that the novelist had the Leslies of
Balquhain in his eye when he makes Elspeth say that the Glenallan family always
buried their dead at night and by torchlight, 'since the time the great Earl
fell at the sair battle o' the Harlaw, when they say the coronach was cried in
ae day from the mouth o' the Tay to the Buck of the Cabrach. But the great
Earl's mother was living; they were a doughty and a dour race, the women o' the
house o' Glenallan, and she wad hae nae coronach cried for her son, but had him
laid in the silence o' midnight in his place o' rest, without either drinking
the dirge or crying the lament. She said he had killed enow that day he died for
the widows and daughters o' the Highlanders he had slain to cry the coronach for
them he had slain and for her son too; and sae she laid him in the grave wi' dry
eyes and without a groan or a wail.'
THE RAMSAYS.
INTRODUCTION.
page 307
THERE are certain qualities, both physical and mental, which for ages have run
in the blood of distinguished families, and have obtained for them corresponding
designations. The 'gallant Grahams,' 'gay Gordons,' 'handsome Hays,' 'light
Lindsays,' 'haughty Hamiltons,' have, generation after generation, exhibited the
qualities which these epithets imply. One noble Scottish family have, from the
earliest times, been noted for their covetous greed of the lands of their
neighbours; another for their cruelty; a third for their irascible temper; a
fourth for their braggart boasting. The Ramsays have, from the earliest period
down to the present day, been noted for their courage and military skill, and
that 'stubborn hardihood' which may be broken but will not bend. They took a
prominent part in the protracted struggle for the liberty and independence of
their country against 'our auld enemies of England,' and laid down their lives
for Scotland's cause on many a bloody field. In later times, the fifth, sixth,
seventh, and ninth Earls attained high rank in the British army, while the
younger members of their families acquired great distinction in Continental and
Colonial warfare. In allusion to their services both at home and abroad, Sir Walter
Scott, who had a high regard for this old heroic
family, makes King James, in the 'Fortunes of Nigel,' speak of 'the auld martial
stock of the house of Dalwolsey, than whom better men never did, and better
never will draw sword for king and country. Heard ye never of Sir William
Ramsay, of Dalwolsey, of whom John Fordoun saith, He was bellicosissimus,
nobilissimus? We are grieved we cannot have the presence of the noble chief of
that house at the marriage ceremony; but when there is honour to be won abroad,
the Lord Dalwolsey is seldom to be found at home. "Sic fuit, est, et erit."'
page 313
His eldest son, GEORGE RAMSAY, succeeded him in the family titles and estates.
Earl George was the school and college companion of Sir Walter
Scott, who held him in high and affectionate esteem. On
meeting with the Earl in the evening of life, after a long separation, Sir Walter
mentions him as still being, and always having been, 'the same manly and
generous character, that all about him loved as the Lordie Ramsay of the Yard'
(the playground of the Edinburgh High School). The Earl served with great
distinction in the West Indies, Holland, and Egypt, and in the Spanish
Peninsula, where he commanded the Second Division of the British army; and at
the battle of Waterloo. He attained the full rank of general, was made a Knight
Grand Cross of the Bath, was one of the general officers who received the thanks
of Parliament, and was created a British peer by the title of BARON DALHOUSIE OF
DALHOUSIE CASTLE. In 1816 he was appointed to the government of Nova Scotia;
and, in 1819, he succeeded the Duke of Richmond as Captain-General of the forces
in North America; in 1826 he was made Commander-in-Chief of the forces in India.
He was Captain-General of the Royal Company of Archers. The Earl died in 1838,
in the 68th year of his age, universally regretted.
THE LAUDERDALE MAlTLANDS.
INTRODUCTION.
page 348
Gawain Douglas places the veteran knight, with 'his auld beard grey,' among the
popular heroes of romance, in his allegorical 'Palace of Honour;' and in another
ancient poem, in praise of the family seat of Lethington, it is stated that the
exploits of auld Sir Richard with the grey beard, and of his three sons, were
'sung in many a far countrie, albeit in rural rhyme.' He seems, as Sir Walter
Scott remarks, to have been distinguished for devotion
as well as valour, and was a liberal benefactor to the Abbey of Dryburgh. He had
three sons, but only one survived him.
page 367
Lord Lauderdale was undoubtedly a man of great ability and extensive
acquirements, and, but for his violent temper and want of judgment, might have
attained high rank as a statesman. Sir Walter Scott,
who disliked him both on public and private grounds, speaks in strong terms of
Lauderdale's 'violent temper, irritated by long disappointed ambition and
ancient feud with all his brother nobles.' The Earl does not appear to have been
a much greater favourite with the Whig party even when he was a prominent member
of it. After his desertion of the Whigs he became the leader of the Scottish
Tory nobles, and managed the election of the sixteen representative peers in the
House of Lords. Lord Cockburn ascribes the election of twelve of their number
hostile to the Reform Bill of 1831 as due to the skilful manoeuvring of that
'cunning old recreant, Lauderdale;' and, in a letter to Kennedy of Dunure,
written about the same time, he says, 'Lauderdale has been in Edinburgh, and I
always like him to be against my side, for I [p.367] never knew him right.' Lord
Lauderdale was the author of numerous treatises: three on financial
subjects—'Thoughts on Finance,' 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of
Public Wealth,' 'Thoughts on the Alarming State of the Currency, and the Means
of Redressing the Pecuniary Grievances of Ireland;' 'Hints to the Manufacturers
of Great Britain on the consequences of the Irish Union;' 'An Inquiry into the
Practical Merits of the System of Government in India under the Board of
Control;' 'Letters on the Corn Laws,' &c., &c. He left a family of four
sons and four daughters; but all his sons died unmarried. The two eldest held in
succession the family titles and estates.
THE HOMES.
INTRODUCTION.
page 375
Lord Dacre, who commanded the English reserve, however, advanced to Sir Edmund's
support, and kept the victorious Homes and Gordons [p.374] in check. He states,
in a letter to the English Council, dated May 17th, 1514, that on the field of
Brankston he and his friends encountered the Earl of Huntly and the Chamberlain;
that Sir John Home, Cuthbert Home of Fast Castle, the son and heir of Sir John
Home, Sir William Cockburn of Langton, and his son, the son and heir of Sir
David Home [of Wedderburn], the laird of Blacater, and many other of Lord Home's
kinsmen and friends, were slain; and that on the other hand Philip Dacre,
brother of Lord Dacre, was taken prisoner by the Scots, and many other of his
kinsfolk, servants, and tenants, were either taken or slain in the struggle. Sir
David Home of Wedderburn had seven sons in the battle, who were called 'The
Seven Spears of Wedderburn.' Sir David himself and his eldest son, George, fell
in the conflict with Lord Dacre. These facts completely disprove the charge made
against the chief of the Homes that he remained inactive after defeating the
division under Sir Edmund Howard. It is alleged, however, by Pitscottie, that
when the Earl of Huntly urged Lord Home to go to the assistance of the King, he
replied, 'He does well that does well for himself; we have fought our vanguard
and won the same, therefore let the lave [rest] do their part as well as we.'
This statement, however, is in the highest degree improbable, and is directly at
variance with the account which Lord Dacre gives of his conflict with the Homes,
after they had defeated Sir Edmund Howard's division. It seems to have been
invented by the enemies of Home, who, though he fought with conspicuous courage
in the battle, incurred great odium in consequence of his having returned unhurt
and loaded with spoil History of the House of Douglas, ii. p. 260.* from this
fatal conflict. It was even alleged that he had carried off the King from the
battlefield and afterwards put him to death. A preposterous story passed current
among the credulous of that day that in the twilight, when the battle was nearly
ended, four horsemen mounted the King on a dun hackney and conveyed him across
the Tweed with them at nightfall. From that time he was never seen or heard of,
but it was asserted that he was murdered either in Home Castle or near Kelso by
the vassals of Lord Home. This absurd tale was revived about fifty or sixty
years ago by a popular writer, who gave credit to a groundless rumour that a
skeleton wrapped in a bull's hide and surrounded with an iron chain had been
found in the well of Home Castle. Sir Walter Scott
says he could never find any [p.375] better authority for the story than the
sexton of the parish having said that if the well were cleaned out he would not
be surprised at such a discovery. Lord Home had no motive to commit such a
crime. He was the chamberlain of the King, and his chief favourite; and, as it
has been justly remarked, he had much to lose (in fact, did lose all) in
consequence of James's death, and had nothing earthly to gain by that event.
page 378
The forfeited title and estates of Lord Home, who left no male issue, were
restored, in 1522, to his brother GEORGE, who became fourth Lord. Like his
predecessors, he appears to have possessed the fickleness and instability of
character which the family probably inherited from their versatile ancestors,
the Earls of March. He deserted the party of the Earl of Angus—Queen
Margaret's second husband—whom the Homes had hitherto supported, and became
for a time a strenuous partisan of Albany, probably in return for the
restitution of the family estates and honours. But two or three years later he
was found fighting on the side of Angus at the battle of Melrose, where Sir Walter
Scott of Buccleuch made an unsuccessful attempt to
rescue the young King, James V., from the hands of the Douglases. Shortly after
he assisted the Earl of Argyll in driving Angus across the Border and compelling
him to take refuge in England. It is due to Lord Home, however, to state that,
though thus inconstant in his adherence to the cause of his brother nobles, the
remark which Sir James Melvil made respecting his son is equally applicable to
him, that 'he was so true a Scotsman that he was unwinnable to England to do any
thing prejudicial to his country.' There were very few Scottish nobles of that
day of whom this could with truth be said. In August, 1542, Lord Home, along
with the Earl of Huntly, defeated, at Haddon-Rig, a few miles to the east of
Kelso, a body of three thousand horsemen, who were laying waste [p.378] the
country under the command of Sir Robert Bowes, the English Warden, the banished
Earl of Angus, and Sir George Douglas. The encounter was fierce and protracted
and was decided in favour of the Scots by the timely arrival of Lord Home with
four hundred lances. The English were completely defeated, and left six hundred
prisoners in the hands of the victors, among whom were the Warden himself, his
brother, and other persons of note. A few months later, in conjunction with
Huntly and Seton, Home did good service by harassing a formidable army which
invaded Scotland under the Duke of Norfolk, and compelling him in little more
than a week to retire to Berwick and disband his forces. In a skirmish with the
English horsemen, on the 9th of September, 1547, the day before the battle of
Pinkie, Lord Home, who commanded the Scottish cavalry, was thrown from his horse
and severely injured, and his son, the Master of Home, was taken prisoner. His
lordship was carried to the castle of Edinburgh, where he died. His wife, a
co-heiress of the old family of the Halyburtons of Dirleton, stoutly defended
Home Castle against the Protector Somerset, but was ultimately obliged to
surrender, and it was garrisoned by a detachment of English troops. Lord Home
left two sons and a daughter.
page 385
'He was diligent in reading the Sacred Scriptures, and not to little purpose. He
was assiduous in settling controverted points, and, at table or over a bottle,
he either asked other people's opinions or freely [p.385] gave his own. He had
read a great deal when his public and private business allowed him. He likewise
wrote meditations upon the Revelations, the soul, love of God, &c. He also
gave some application to law, and even to physic. He was polite and unaffected
in his manners. He sang after the manner of the Court. He likewise sang psaltery
to his own playing on the harp. He also sometimes danced. He was very keen for
hare-hunting, and delighted much in hawks. He rode skilfully, and sometimes
applied himself to the breaking of the fiercest horses. He was skilful in the
bow beyond most men of his time. He was able to endure cold, hunger, thirst,
fatigue, and watching.…He was moderate both in his eating and drinking, which
was in those days scarce any praise, temperance being then frequent, though it
is now very rare.' Domestic Annals, ii. pp. 455, 456. Sir Walter
Scott relates this anecdote on the authority of Mrs.
Murray Keith—Notes to Fountainhall's Chron. p. 33.*
THE MAXWELLS.
page 17
On the 6th of December, 1593, the Warden crossed the river Annan and advanced to
attack the Johnstones, who had skilfully taken up their position on an elevated
piece of ground at the Dryfe Sands, near Lockerbie, where Lord Maxwell could not
bring his whole force into action against them at the same time. A detachment
sent out by the Warden was suddenly surrounded by a stronger body of the enemy
and driven back on the main force, which it threw into confusion. A desperate
conflict then ensued, in which the Johnstones and their allies, though inferior
in numbers, gained a complete victory. The Maxwells suffered considerable loss
in the battle and the retreat, and many of them were slashed in the face by the
pursuers in the streets of Lockerbie—a kind of blow which to this day is
called in the district 'A Lockerbie lick.' Lord Maxwell himself, who, says
Spottiswood, was 'a tall man and heavy in armour, was in the chase overtaken and
stricken from his horse,' and slain under two large thorn-trees which were long
called 'Maxwell's Thorns,' but were swept away about fifty years ago by an
inundation [p.17] of the Dryfe. According to tradition, it was William Johnstone
of the Kirkhill, the nephew of theGalliard, who overtook Lord Maxwell in his
flight, and obtained the reward offered by Sir JamesJohnstone, by striking down
the chief of the Maxwells and cutting off his right hand. The lairds
ofDrumlanrig, Closeburn, and Lag escaped by the fleetness of their horses.
'Never ane of his awn folks,'says an ancient chronicler, 'remained with him
[Maxwell] (only twenty of his awn household), but all fled through the water;
five of the said lord's company slain; and his head and right hand were ta'en
with them to the Lochwood and affixed on the wall thereof. The bruit ran that
the said Lord Maxwell wastreacherously deserted by his awn company.' Johnstone's
Histories, p. 182. Sir Walter Scott
mentions a tradition of the district, that the wifeof the Laird of Lockerbie
sallied out from her tower, which she carefully locked, to see how the battle
had gone, and saw Lord Maxwell lying beneath a thorn-tree, bareheaded and
bleeding to death from the loss of his right hand, and that she dashed out his
brains with the ponderous key which she carried. But the story is in itself
exceedingly improbable, and is at variance with the contemporary histories.*
page 25
It is not known whether these proposals were submitted by the Privy Council to
the relations of thedeceased Laird of Johnstone; [p.25] the Government, however,
were determined—no doubt with the full approval of the King—to carryinto
effect the sentence which had been pronounced upon Lord Maxwell in his absence.
But, as Sir Walter Scott
remarks, 'in the best actions of that monarch, there seems to have been an
unfortunate tincture of that meanness so visible on the present occasion. Lord
Maxwell was indicted for the murder of Johnstone; but this was combined with a
charge of fire-raising, which, according to the ancient Scottish law, if
perpetrated by a landed man, constituted a species of treason, and inferred
forfeiture. Thus the noble purpose of public justice was sullied by being united
with that of enriching some needy favourite.'
'The execution of Lord Maxwell,' says Sir Walter Scott,
'put a final end to the foul debate between the Maxwells and the John-stones, in
the course of which each family lost two chieftains; one dying of abroken heart,
one in the field of battle, one by assassination, and one by the sword of the
executioner.'
page 47
The Committee for Privileges of the House of Lords reported on end June, 1858,
that Mr. ConstableMaxwell had made out his claim, and in virtue of that decision
he became tenth LORD HERRIES OF TERREGLES. He died in 1876, leaving a family of
seven sons and nine daughters. The family title and estates are now possessed by
his eldest son, MARMADUKE CONSTABLE MAXWELL, eleventh Baron Herries. His third
son, the Hon. Joseph Maxwell, married in 1874 Mary Monica, daughter and heiress
of the late James Robert Hope Scott, Esq., of
Abbotsford, and great-granddaughter and only surviving descendant of Sir Walter
Scott.
THE JOHNSTONES OF ANNANDALE.
page 57
The chief seat of the Johnstones in those days of 'tugging and riving' was
Lochwood, in the parish ofJohnstone, the position of which, in the midst of bogs
and morasses, made it a fortalice of great strength, and led to the remark of
James VI., in allusion to the purpose which it served as a stronghold
offreebooters, that 'the man who built it must have been a thief at heart.'
Lochwood, however, was not the only fastness in which the Johnstones stored
their booty. A few miles from Moffat there is a remarkable hollow, surrounded by
hills on every side except at one narrow point, where a small stream issues from
it. 'It looks,' says Pate in Peril, in 'Redgauntlet,' 'as if four hills were
laying their heads together to shut out any daylight from the dark hollow space
between them. A deep, black, blackguard-looking abyss of a hole it is, and goes
straight down from the roadside as perpendicular as it can do to be a heathery
brae. At the bottom there is a small bit of a brook that you would think could
hardly find its way out from the hills that are so closely jammed round it.'
This inaccessible hollow bore the name of the 'Marquis's Beef-stand,' or
'Beef-tub,' because 'the Annandale loons used to put their stolen cattle in
there.' The Beef-stand was the scene of a remarkable adventure to a Jacobite
gentleman while on theroad to Carlisle to stand his trial for his share in the
rebellion of 1745. He made his escape from hisguards at this spot in the manner
which Sir Walter Scott makes
Maxwell of Summertrees, who bore the sobriquet of 'Pate in Peril,' describe in
graphic terms as an adventure of his own:—
'I found myself on foot,' he said, 'on a misty morning with my hand, just for
fear of going astray, linkedinto a handcuff, as they call it, with poor Harry
Redgauntlet's fastened into the other; and there we were trudging along with
about a score more that had thrust their horns ower deep in the bog, just like
ourselves, and a sergeant's guard of redcoats, with two file of dragoons, to
keep all quiet and give usheart to the road.…Just when we came on the edge of
this Beef-stand of the Johnstones, I slipped out my hand from thehandcuff, cried
to Harry, "Follow me," whisked under the belly of the dragoon horse,
flung my plaidround me with the speed of lightning, threw myself on my side, for
there was no keeping my feet, and down the brae hurled I, over heather, and
fern, and blackberries, like a barrel down Chalmers' Close in Auld Reekie. I
never could help laughing when I think how the scoundrel redcoats must have been
bum-hazed; for the mist being, as I said, thick, they had little notion, I take
it, that they were on the vergeof such a dilemma. I was half-way down—for
rowing is faster wark than rinning—ere they could get at their arms; and then
it was flash, flash, flash, rap, rap, rap, from the edge of the road; but my
head was too jumbled to think anything either of that or of the hard knocks I
got among the stones. I kept my senses together, whilk has been thought
wonderful by all that ever saw the place; and I helped myself with myhands as
gallantly as I could, and to the bottom I came. There I lay for half a moment;
but the thought of a gallows is worth all the salts and scent-bottles in the
world for bringing a man to himself. Up I sprung like a four-year-old colt. All
the hills were spinning round me like so many great big humming-tops. But there
was no time to think of that neither, more especially as the mist had risen a
little with the firing. I could see the villains like sae many crows on the edge
of the brae; and I reckon that they saw me, for some of the loons were beginning
to crawl down the hill, but liker auld wives in their red cloaks, coming frae a
field-preaching, than such a souple lad as I. Accordingly they soon began to
stop and load their pieces. "Good-e'en to you, gentlemen," thought I,
"if that is to be the gate of it. If you have any farther word with me you
maun come as far as Carriefrawgauns." And so off I set, and never buck went
faster ower the braes than I did; and I never stopped till I had put three
waters, reasonably deep, as the season was rainy, half-a-dozen mountains, and a
few thousand acres of the wurst moss and ling in Scotland betwixt me and my
friends the redcoats.'
Sir Walter Scott says he saw
in his youth the gentleman to whom the adventure actually happened.* [p.56] The
Johnstones, unlike the Armstrongs, Elliots, and Grahams, 'sought the beeves that
made theirbroth' only in Cumberland and Northumberland, though they would
probably have had no scruples inmaking a prey of any outlying cattle belonging
to the Maxwells, with whom they had a hereditary feud.Lord Maxwell, the head of
this great family, was in the sixteenth century the most powerful man in the
south-west of Scotland. But the Johnstones, though inferior in numbers and
power, were able, throughtheir valour, and the strong position which they held
in the mountainous district of Annandale, to maintain their ground against their
formidable rivals. In 1585 Lord Maxwell opposed the profligate government of the
worthless royal favourite, James Stewart, Earl of Arran, and was in consequence
declared a rebel. According to the common, but most objectionable practice of
that period, the Court gave a commission to Johnstone, his enemy, to proceed
against him with fire and sword, and to apprehend him; and two bands of hired
soldiers, commanded by Captains Cranstoun and Lammie, were despatched to
Johnstone's assistance. They were intercepted, however, on Crawford Moor, by
Robert Maxwell, of Castlemilk, and after a sharp conflict the mercenary forces
were defeated. Lammie and most of his company were killed, and Cranstoun was
taken prisoner. In relating this incident Sir Walter Scott
says, 'It is devoutly to be wished that this Lammie may have been the miscreant
who, in the day of Queen Mary's distress, when she surrendered to the nobles at
Carberry Hill, "his ensign being of white taffety, had painted on it the
cruel murder of King Henry, and laid down before her Majesty at what time she
presented herself as prisoner to the Lords." It was very probably so, as he
was then, and continued to be till his death, a hired soldier of the Government.
Nine months after the incident in question, the following entry appears in the
Lord Treasurer's books, under March 18, 1567-8: "To Captain Andro Lambie,
for his expenses passand of Glasgow to Edinburgh to uplift certain men of weir,
and to make one Handsenyie of white taffety, £25" [Scots]. He was then
acting for the Regent Moray. It seems probable that, having spoiled his ensign
by the picture of the king's murder, he was now gratified with a new one at the
expense of his employer.'— See Domestic Annals of Scotland, i. p. 156, note,
and Border Minstrelsy, ii. p. 134, note.* Maxwell followed up his success by
[p.57] setting fire to Johnstone's castle of Lochwood, remarking with savage
glee that he would give Lady Johnstone light enough by which 'to set her hood.'
Unfortunately, besides the 'haill house, bedding,and plenisching,' Johnstone's
charter-chest, containing the whole muniments of the family, and many other
valuable papers, perished in the flames.
THE STEWARTS OF TRAQUAIR.
page 66
To the east of Traquair lies Minchmoor, over which Montrose made his escape from
Philiphaugh—lofty,yet round and flat, fragrant with recollections of Sir Walter
Scott and Mungo Park, the African traveller; and to the
southwest and south are the green pastoral hills of Ettrick and Yarrow,
'round-backed, kindly, and solemn,' with 'lone St. Mary's Lake' in their bosom;
and Dryhope Tower, the residence of the 'Flower of Yarrow;' and Blackhouse
Tower, the scene of the Douglas tragedy; and the 'Dowie Dens of Yarrow,'
immortalized in Scottish song, and which have been the subject of more and
better poetry than even the celebrated Vale of Tempe.
page 76
If we may believe a story handed down by tradition, related by Sir Walter
Scott, and embodied in a balladpublished in his 'Border
Minstrelsy,' the Earl of Traquair must have been as unscrupulous in the means he
employed to promote his own private interests, as in the steps which he took to
carry out the policy of the Court. When he was at the height of his power, he
had a lawsuit of great importance, which was to be decided in the Court of
Session, and there was [p.76] every reason to believe that the judgment would
turn upon the casting-vote of the President, SirAlexander Gibson, titular Lord
Durie, whose opinion was understood to be adverse to Traquair's interest. Durie
was not only an able lawyer but an upright judge —a character not very common
in Scotland in those days, when the maxim, 'Show me the man and I'll show you
the law' was of very general application. As the President was proof both
against bribes and intimidation, it was necessary for the success of the Lord
Treasurer in his lawsuit that he should, in one way or other, be disposed of.
Therewas a stalwart Borderer, named William Armstrong, called, for the sake of
distinction, 'Christie's Will,' a lineal descendant of the famous Johnnie
Armstrong of Gilnockie, who, for some marauding exploits, had been imprisoned in
the Tolbooth of Jedburgh, and was indebted to Traquair for his liberty, if not
for his life. To this daring moss-trooper the Earl applied for help in this
extremity, and he, without hesitation, undertook to kidnap the President, and
keep him out of the way till the cause should be decided. On coming to
Edinburgh, he discovered that the judge was in the habit of taking the air on
horseback on Leith sands without an attendant. Watching his opportunity one day,
when the judge was taking his usual airing, Armstrong accosted him, and
contrived, by his amusing conversation, to decoy the President to an
unfrequented and furzy common, called the Figgit Whins, where he suddenly pulled
him from his horse, blindfolded him, and muffled him in a large cloak. In this
condition the luckless judge was trussed up behind Christie's Will, and carried
across the country by unfrequented by-paths, and deposited in an old castle in
Annandale, not far from Moffat, called the Tower of Graham. Meanwhile, his horse
having been found wandering on the sands, it was concluded that its rider had
been thrown into the sea and drowned. His friends went into mourning, and a
successor was appointed to his office by the Lord Treasurer. The President spent
three dreary months in the dungeon of the Border fortalice, receiving his food
through an aperture in the wall, seeing no one, and never hearing the sound of a
human voice, save when a shepherd called upon his dog
THE DRUMMONDS.
page 97
The interests at stake in this suit were very valuable. Though Drymen, the
original seat of the Drummondfamily, and their other Dumbartonshire property,
passed into the hands of the Grahams centuries ago, and the whole of their
Stirlingshire estates, along with Auchterarder and other ancient possessions of
the family in Perthshire, have also passed away from them, there yet remain the
antique castle of Drummond with its quaint and beautiful gardens, Stobhall and
Cargill, which four hundred years ago were bestowed upon Malcolm Drummond by
Queen Margaret, his aunt, and the Trossachs, Loch Katrine, and Glenartney,
immortalised by Sir Walter Scott,
yielding in all nearly £30,000 a year.
THE ERSKINES OF BUCHAN AND CARDROSS.
page 122
DAVID, second Lord Cardross, his son, was one of the Scottish peers who
protested against thedelivering up of Charles I. to the English army at
Newcastle in 1646. His younger son, the Hon. Colonel John Erskine of Cardross,
was father of John Erskine, the author of the well-known 'Institutes of the Law
of Scotland,' and his grandson was the celebrated Dr. John Erskine, Minister of
Greyfriars Church,Edinburgh, of whom Sir Walter Scott
has given a graphic portrait in 'Guy Mannering.' HENRY, third Lord Cardross, his
eldest son by his first wife, Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas Hope, King's
Advocate, was an eminent patriot, and one of the most prominent opponents of the
Duke of Lauderdale's arbitrary and oppressive administration. He succeeded to
the family title and estates in 1671, and marriedKatherine, second daughter and
ultimately heiress of Sir James Stewart of Strathbrock (or Uphall) and Kirkhill,
in Linlithgowshire. In consequence of his support of the cause of civil and
religious liberty, his lordship underwent long and severe persecution. In the
statement laid before the King of the sufferings he endured it is mentioned that
in August, 1675, he was fined by the Scottish Privy Council the sum of£1,000,
for the offence of his lady's having divine worship performed in his own house,
by his ownchaplain, when Lord Cardross was not present. He was further fined by
the Council in £112 10s. for his tenants having [p.122] attended two
conventicles. He was imprisoned in the castle of Edinburgh for four years,
andwhile a prisoner there was fined, in August, 1677, in the sum of £3,000, the
half of his valued rent, for his lady having, without his knowledge, had a child
baptised by a Nonconforming minister. A garrison was fixed in his house in 1675;
and in June, 1679, the royal forces, on their march to the west, went two miles
out of their road, in order that they might be quartered on Lord Cardross's
estates of Kirkhill and Uphall.
page 126
Lord Cardross was present at his father's death, and figured prominently at his
obsequies, which wereperformed with great solemnity, and elaborate ceremony.
Lady Huntingdon's party took a great interest in the well-being of the young
Earl, and Fletcher, Henry Venn, and the eccentric Berridge were at once
appointed his chaplains. The name of John Wesley was subsequently added to the
list, much to his own satisfaction. In 1771, Lord Buchan took up his residence
on his Linlithgowshire estate, and set himself to effect, by precept and
example, much-needed improvements in husbandry. He also made vigorous efforts to
induce his brother nobles to act an independent part in the election of their
sixteen representatives in Parliament, and to discontinue the degrading practice
of voting for the list sent down by the Government of the day, and he succeeded
ultimately, almost single-handed, in putting it down. He was the founder of the
Society of Antiquaries in Edinburgh, in 1780, and contributed a number of papers
to the first volume of their Transactions. He was able, in 1786, to buy back the
small estate of Dryburgh, which had of old belonged to his ancestors, with the
ruined abbey and mansion-house, where he took up his residence for half a
century, and performed many curious and eccentric feats. He had a restless
propensity for getting up public fêtes, one of which was an annual festival in
commemoration of Thomson, the author of 'The Seasons,' at Ednam, the poet's
native place. He erected, in his [p.126] grounds at Dryburgh, an Ionic temple,
with a statue of Apollo in the interior, and a bust of thebard surmounting the
dome. Burns wrote a poetical address for its inauguration. He also raised a
colossal statue of Sir William Wallace, on the summit of a steep and thickly
planted bank above the river Tweed. It was installed with great ceremony. A huge
curtain was drawn before the statue, which dropped at the discharge of a cannon,
and then the Knight of Ellerslie was discovered with a large German tobacco-pipe
in his mouth, which some wicked wag had placed there—to the unspeakable
consternation of the peer, and amusement of the company. Sir Walter
Scott used to say that when a revolution should take
place, his first act would be to procure a cannon, and batter down this
monstrosity.
page 127
Lord Buchan was fond of acting the part of a Mæcenas, and, not unfrequently
attempted to patroniseliterary men in a way that drew down upon him public
ridicule. The story is well [p.127] known of his calling at Sir Walter
Scott's house, in Edinburgh, when he was lying
dangerously ill, and having been forcibly prevented from intruding into Scott's
chamber, for the purpose of informing him that he had made all necessary
arrangements for the funeral of the great novelist at Dryburgh. 'I wished,' he
said to James Ballantyne, 'to embrace Walter Scott
before he died, and to inform him that I had long considered it as a
satisfactory circumstance that he and I were destined to rest together in the
same place of sepulture. The principal thing, however, was to relieve his mind
as to the arrangements of his funeral—to show him a plan which I prepared for
the procession, and, in a word, to assure him that I took upon myself the whole
conduct of the ceremonial at Dryburgh.
'He then exhibited to Ballantyne a formal programme, in which, as may be
supposed, the predominant figure was not Walter Scott,
line but David, Earl of Buchan. It had been settled, inter alia, that the said
Earl was to pronounce an eulogium over the grave, after the fashion of the
French Academicians in the Père la Chaise.
page 128
Sir Walter Scott, who was
thirty years younger than the Earl, outlived him, and formed one of the company
at his lordship's funeral ten years after the incident mentioned by Lockhart.
Under date April 20th, 1829, he mentions in his diary,' Lord Buchan is dead, a
person whose immense vanity, bordering on insanity, obscured, or rather
eclipsed, very considerable talents. His imagination was so fertile that he
seemed really to believe in the extraordinary fictions which he delighted in
telling. His economy—most laudable in the early part of his life—when it
enabled him from a small income to pay his father's debts—became a miserable
habit, and led him to do mean things. He had a desire to be a great man, and a Mæcenas—à
bon marché. The two celebrated lawyers, his brothers, were not more gifted by
nature than I think he was; but the restraints of a profession kept the
eccentricity of the family in order. Both Henry and Thomas were saving men, yet
both died very poor. The latter at one time possessed £200,000; the other had a
considerable fortune. The Earl alone has died wealthy. It is saving, not
getting, that is the mother of riches. They all had wit. The Earl's was
crack-brained and sometimes caustic; Henry's was of the very kindest, best-humoured,
and gayest sort that ever cheered society; that of Lord Erskine was moody and
muddish: but I never saw him in his best days.' Life of Sir Walter
Scott, iv. p. 276, vii. p. 189.* [p.128] Many amusing
instances have been given both of Lord Buchan's vanity and parsimony. He
wasboasting one day to the Duchess of Gordon of the extraordinary talents of his
family, when her unscrupulous Grace asked him very coolly whether the wit had
not come by the mother, and been all settled on the younger branches. Lord
Buchan held liberal views on political affairs; but, in common with the general
public, he took great offence at a famous article which appeared in the
Edinburgh Review ofOctober, 1808, criticising an account given by Don Pedro
Cevellos of the French usurpations in Spain,and expressing the opinion that no
hope could be entertained of the regeneration of that country. The Earl directed
his servant to throw open the door of his house in George Street, and to lay
down the number of the Review containing the offensive article on the innermost
part of the floor of the lobby; and then, after all this preparation, his
lordship personally kicked the book out of his house to the centre of the
street, where he left it to be trodden into the mud. He had no doubt that this
open proof of his disapprobation would be a death-blow to the Review.
page 132
Henry Erskine was pre-eminently the advocate of the common people, and his name
was a terror to theoppressor, and a tower of strength to the oppressed,
throughout the whole of Scotland. The feeling with which he was regarded by this
class was well expressed by a poor man in a remote district of the country, who,
on being threatened by his landlord with a ruinous lawsuit, for the purpose of
compelling him to submit to some unjust demand, instantly replied, with flashing
eyes, 'Ye dinna ken what ye're saying, maister. There's no a puir man in a'
Scotland need to want a friend, or fear an enemy, as long as Harry Erskine is to
the fore' (survives). Many of Mr. Erskine's bon-mots ('seria commixta jocis')
have been preserved, and show that his wit was as kindly as it was pointed.
'Harry Erskine was the best-natured man I ever knew,' says Sir Walter
Scott, 'thoroughly a gentleman, and with but one
fault—he could not say No. His wit was of the very kindest, best-humoured, and
gayest sort that ever cheered society.'
THE GRAHAMS.
page 159
Montrose was still constantly meditating a descent upon Scotland in favour of
the royal cause, and was at the Hague while Prince Charles was in treaty with
the leaders of the Covenanting party for a restoration to the Scottish throne,
on the principles embodied in the National Covenant. The Marquis earnestly
recommended him not to accept the Crown on the stringent terms proposed by them,
and offered to replace him by force of arms on the throne of his ancestors.
Charles, with characteristic baseness andduplicity, continued to negotiate a
treaty with the Commissioners deputed by the [p.158] Scottish Estates, while at
the same time he encouraged Montrose to persevere in his enterprise,and sent him
the George and Garter. Letters of Charles II., Montrose and his Times, ii. 353.*
The Marquis, having obtained a small supply of money and arms from the Queen of
Sweden, and the King of Denmark, embarked at Hamburg, in the spring of 1650,
with six hundred German mercenaries, and landed on one of the Orkney islands.
Two of his vessels, laden with arms and ammunition, and about a third of his
forces, were lost on the voyage. He constrained a few hundreds of the unwarlike
fishermen to join him, and early in April he crossed to Caithness, with the
design of penetrating into the Highlands. But just as he approached the borders
of Rossshire, at a place called Drumcarbisdale, on the river Kyle (27th April),
he fell into an ambuscade laid for him by Colonel Strachan, who had been
despatched in all haste with a body of horse to obstruct his progress. The
Orkney men threw down their arms at once, and called for quarter. The German
mercenaries retreated to a wood, and there, after a short defence, surrendered
themselves prisoners. Montrose's few Scottish followers made a desperate
resistance, but were most of them cut to pieces. As Sir Walter
Scott remarks, 'the ardent and impetuous character of
this great warrior, corresponding with that of the troops which he commanded,
was better calculated for attack than defence—for surprising others rather
than for providing against surprise himself. His final defeat at Dunbeith so
nearly resembles in its circumstances the surprise at Philiphaugh, as to throw
some shade on his military talents.' Montrose, who was wounded and had his horse
killed under him, seeing the day irretrievably lost, fled from the field. Along
with the Earl of Kinnoul and other two or three friends, they made their way
into the desolate and mountainous region which separates Assynt from the Kyle of
Sutherland, with the view of passing into the friendly country of Lord Reay. The
Earl of Kinnoul sunk under the effect of hunger, cold, and fatigue, and Montrose
himself fell into the hands of Macleod of Assynt, a mean and sordid chief, who
delivered him up to the Covenanting general. He was conveyed to Edinburgh in the
peasant's habit in which he had disguised himself. 'He sat,' says an
eye-witness, 'upon a little shelty horse without a saddle, but a quilt of rags
and straw, and pieces of rope for stirrups, his feet fastened under the horse's
belly with a tether, and a bit halter for a bridle; a ragged old dark-reddish
plaid, and a Montrer cap upon his head, a [p.159] musketeer on each side, and
his fellow-prisoners on foot after him.' At the house of the Laird ofGrange,
where he spent one night, he nearly effected his escape by a stratagem of the
lady, who 'plied the guards with intoxicating drink until they were all fast
asleep, and then she dressed the Marquis in her own clothes. In this disguise he
passed all the sentinels, and was on the point of escaping, when a soldier, just
sober enough to mark what was passing, gave the alarm, and he was again
secured.' Life and Times, 471.*
page 159
When he reached Dundee the citizens, greatly to their honour, although they had
suffered severely fromhis arms, expressed sympathy for their fallen foe, and
supplied him with clothes and other necessaries suitable to his rank. 'The
Marquis himself,' says Sir Walter Scott,
'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 an heroic enemy, in the same manner as
they would have done over a detected felon.'
THOMAS GRAHAM, LORD LYNEDOCH.
page 172
Sir Walter Scott, in his
'Vision of Don Roderick,' thus touchingly refers to the motive which led
thesorrowing husband of Mrs. Graham to devote himself to a military career:—
THE GRAHAMS OF ESK, NETHERBY, AND NORTON-CONYERS.
page 182
THE GRAHAMS OF ESK, NETHERBY, AND NORTON-CONYERS, the most important of the
minor branches of the family of Graham, are descended from Sir John Graham of
Kilbride, near Dunblane, second son of Malise, firstEarl of Strathern. On
account of his distinguished courage and daring exploits, he was
commonlysurnamed 'John with the Bright Sword.' Having fallen into disfavour at
Court, probably on account of some of the sanguinary feuds of his day, Sir John
retired, with a considerable number of his kinsmen and clan, to the Borders, in
the reign of Henry IV., and settled in 'the Debateable Land '—a strip of
territory on the banks of the river Esk, near the Solway Firth—so called
because it was claimed both by Scotland and England. 'They were all stark
moss-troopers,' says Mr. Sandford, 'and arrant thieves; both to England and
Scotland outlawed; yet sometimes connived at, because they gave intelligence
forth of Scotland, and would raise four hundred horse at any time upon a raid of
the English into Scotland.' A saying is recorded of a mother to her son (which
is now become proverbial), 'Ride, Rowley, hough's i' the pot;' that is, the last
piece of beef was in the pot, and therefore it was high time for him to go and
fetch more. Introduction to the Historyof Cumberland.* Sir Walter
Scott says that this fierce and hardy race—
THE SCOTTS OF BUCCLEUCH.
page 190
Like many other Scottish nobles, both of native and foreign extraction, Richard Scott
took the oath offealty to Edward I. of England in 1290, and, like his brother
nobles, broke his oath on the first convenient opportunity. On his doing homage
to the English monarch, the Sheriff of Selkirk was ordered to restore to him his
lands and rights, which were then in the hands of King Edward. He must,
therefore, have been at that time in possession of [p.190] Rankleburn and
Buccleuch, which were situated in the county of Selkirk. Richard Scott
died about the year 1320,and was succeeded by his son, SIR MICHAEL, who must
have taken an active part in the war withEngland during the reign of David II.,
as he obtained the honour of knighthood. He fought at thedisastrous battle of
Halidon Hill, 19th July, 1333; and was killed, thirteen years after, at the
battle ofDurham, where the King was taken prisoner, along with many of his
barons and knights. In thegenealogical table drawn up by Sir Walter
Scott, it is stated that Sir Michael left two sons,
'the eldest of whom (ROBERT) carried on the family, the second (JOHN) was the
ancestor of the Scotts of Harden.'Nothing worthy of mention is known of Robert Scott,
or of his son, SIR WALTER, who is said to have been
killed at the battle of Homildon, 14th September, 1402. But Sir Walter's
son, ROBERT, exchanged the lands of Glenkery, which were a portion of the lands
of Rankleburn, for the lands of Bellenden, which then belonged to the monastery
of Melrose. Bellenden, which was a convenient spot for the gathering of the clan
from Ettrick, Kirkurd, and Murthockstone, became henceforth the place of
rendezvous of the Scotts of Buccleuch when they were mustered for a Border raid.
Robert Scott also acquired half of the lands of
Branxholm from John Inglis, the laird of Menar, by a charter dated 31st January,
1420, and other lands in the barony of Hawick.
page 191
Robert Scott was succeeded, in 1426, by his eldest son,
SIR WALTER SCOTT, Knight, who
was the firstof the family styled 'Lord of Buccleuch.' He possessed the family
estates during the long period of forty-three years, and added greatly to their
extent. His first acquisition was the lands of Lempitlaw, nearKelso, from
Archibald, Earl of Douglas, on the resignation of Robert Scott,
his father, in 1426. He next obtained, in 1437, the barony of Eckford, also in
Roxburghshire, from James II., as a reward for hiscapture of Gilbert Rutherford,
a notorious freebooter; and in 1446 he exchanged the estate ofMurthockstone, or
Murdiestone, for the other half of Branxholm, of which Sir Thomas Inglis of
Manorwas proprietor. According to tradition, the exchange took place in
consequence of a conversation between Scott and Inglis,
in which the latter complained of the injuries that he suffered from the
depredations of the English Borderers, who frequently plundered his lands of
Branxholm. Sir Walter Scott,
who already possessed the other half of the barony, [p.191] offered him the
estate of Murdiestone, in exchange for the lands which were exposed to
theseinroads. The offer was at once accepted. When the bargain was completed, Scott
made the significant and characteristic remark that 'the cattle in Cumberland
were as good as those of Teviotdale.' He availedhimself of the first opportunity
to commence a system of reprisals for the English raids, which wasregularly
pursued by his successors. An amusing reference to the well-known habits of the
Scotts is made in the ballad of the 'Outlaw Murray,' where Buccleuch is
represented as trying to inflame the displeasure of the King against the outlaw,
and urging the infliction of condign punishment upon him for his offences:—
page 191
'Then spak the kene Laird of Buckscleuch,
A stalworthe man and sterne was he—
"For a King to gang an Outlaw till,
Is beneath his state and dignitie.
"The man that wons yon Foreste intil,
He lives by reif and felonie
Wherefore brayd on, my sovereign liege,
Wi' fire and sword we'll fellow thee;
Or, gif your courtlie lords fa' back,
Our Borderers sail the onset gie."
'Then out and spak the nobil King,
And round him cast a wylie ee—
"Now baud thy tongue, Sir Walter Scott,
Nor speak of reif nor felonie:
For had every honest man his awin kye,
A right puir clan thy name wad be"'
page 192
Sir Walter Scott was cousin to
Sir William Crichton, the powerful and unscrupulous Chancellor of JamesII., and
it was, in all probability, through this connection that the Scotts took part
with the King in his desperate contest with the house of Douglas. In 1455 the
three brothers of the exiled Earl—the Earls of Moray and Ormond, and Lord
Balveny—invaded the Scottish borders at the head of a powerful force, butwere
encountered (1st May) at Arkinholm, near Langholm, by the Scotts and other
Border clans, under the Earl of Angus, and were totally routed. Balveny escaped
into England, but Mor
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