History Of Scotland Vol. 1 - Part 12

( Originally Published 1909 )

Preparations of Edward to invade Scotland—Incursions of the Scots into Lancashire—The English enter Scotland—Robert Bruce lays waste the Country, and avoids Battle—The English are obliged to Retreat—Robert invades England in turn—Defeats the Bing of England at Biland Abbey—Treason and Execution of Sir Andrew Hartcla—Truce for Thirteen Years-Randolph's Negotiation with the Pope—Settlement of the Crown of Scotland—Deposition of Edward II.—Robert determines to break the Truce under Charges of Infraction by England—Edward III. assembles his Army at York, with a formidable Body of Auxiliaries—Douglas and Randolph advance into Northumberland at the Head of a light-armed Army—Edward marches as far as the Tyne without being able to find the Scots—A Reward published to whomsoever should bring Tidings of their Motions —It is claimed by Thomas of Rokeby—The Scots are found in an inaccessible Position, and they refuse Battle—The Scots shift their Encampment to Stanhope Park—Douglas attacks the English by Night—The Scots retreat, and the English Army is dismissed—The Scots suddenly again invade England—A Pacification takes place: its particular Articles—Illness and Death of Bruce—Thoughts on his Life and Character—Effects produced on the Character of the Scots during his Reign

KING EDWARD made extensive preparations for a campaign on a great scale : he sent for soldiers, arms, and provisions, to Aquitaine and the other French provinces belonging to England, and obtained the consent of parliament for a large levy of forces, upon the scale of one man from each village and hamlet in England, with a proportional number from market towns and cities. Subsidies were also granted to a large extent, for defraying the expenses of the expedition. But while Edward was making preparations, the Scots were already in action.

Randolph broke into the west marches with those troops to whom the road was become familiar ; and hardly had they returned, when the king himself, at the head of one large body, advanced through the western marches, into Lancashire, wasting the country on every side; while Douglas and Randolph, who entered the borders more to the east, joined him with a second division. They marched through the vale of Furness, laying everything waste in their passage, and piling their wagons with the English valuables. They returned into Scotland upon the 24th July, after having spent twenty-four days in this destructive raid.

It was August, 1322, before King Edward moved northward, with a gallant army fit to have disputed a second field of Bannockburn. But Bruce not being now under an engagement to meet the English in a pitched battle, the reputation of his arms could suffer no dishonor by declining such a risk; and his sound views of military policy recommended his evading battle. He carefully laid the whole borders waste as far as the Firth of Forth, removing the inhabitants to the mountains, with all their effects of any value.

When the English army entered, they found a land of desolation, which famine seemed to guard. The king advanced to Edinburgh unopposed. On their march the soldiers only found one lame bull. "Is he all that you have got?" said the Earl Warrenne to the soldiers who brought in this solitary article of plunder. "By my faith, I never saw dearer beef."

At Edinburgh they learned that Bruce had assembled his forces at Culross, where he lay watching the motions of the invaders. The English had expected their ships in the Firth, and waited for them three days. The vessels were detained by contrary winds, the soldiers suffered by famine, and Edward was obliged to retreat without having seen an enemy. They returned by the convents of Dry-burgh and Melrose, where they slew such monks as were too infirm to escape, violated the sanctuaries, and plundered the consecrated plate.' This argues a degree of license which, in an army, seldom fails to bring its own punishment. When the English soldiers, after much want and privation, regained their own Iand of plenty, they indulged in it so intemperately that sixteen thousand died of inflammation of the bowels, and others had their constitutions broken for life.

Robert Bruce hastened to retaliate the invasion which he had not judged it prudent to meet and repel. He pushed across the Tweed at the head of his army, and made an at-tempt upon Norham Castle, in which he failed. He learned, however, that the king of England was reposing and collecting forces at Biland Abbey, near Malton; and as the Scots, although they fought on foot, generally used in their journeys small horses of uncommon strength and hardihood, Robert, by a forced march, suddenly and unexpectedly placed himself in front of the English army. But they were admirably drawn up on the ridge of a hill, accessible only by a single, narrow and difficult ascent. Bruce commanded Douglas to storm the English position. As he advanced to the attack, he was joined by Randolph, who with four squires volunteered to fight under his command. Sir Thomas Ughtred and Sir Ralph Cobham, who were stationed in advance of the English army to defend the pass, made a violent and bloody opposition. But Bruce, as at the battle of Cruachan-Ben, turned the English position by means of a body of Highlanders accustomed to mountain warfare, who climbed the ridge at a distance from the scene of action, and attacked the flank and rear of the English position. King Edward with the utmost difficulty escaped to Bridlington, leaving behind him his equipage, baggage, and treasure. John of Bretagne, earl of Richmond, and Henry de Sully, grand butler of France, were made prisoners. It seems the earl had, upon some late occasion, spoken discourteously of Bruce, who made a distinction between him and the other French captives, ordering Richmond into close custody, and recognizing in the others honorable knights, who sought adventures and battles from no ill-will to him, but merely for augmentation of their names in chivalry. The steward of Scotland, at the head of five hundred Scottish men-at-arms, pursued the routed army to the walls of York, and, knight-like (as the phrase then was), abode there till evening, to see if any would issue to fight. The Scots then raised an immense booty in the country, and once more withdrew to their own land loaded with spoil.

The fidelity of Andrew de Hartcla, who had rendered King Edward the important service of putting down the insurrection of the Earl of Lancaster, had procured him the rank of Earl of Carlisle, and many other royal favors. The recollection of these benefits did not, it would seem, prevent his entering into a conspiracy against the prince by whom they were conferred, of nearly the same nature with that of Lancaster, in suppressing which he himself bore the principal part. This second plot was detected, and the Earl of Carlisle brought to trial. He was charged with having entered into a treasonable engagement with the Scottish king, undertaking to guarantee him in the possession of Scotland. In requital, Bruce was to render Hartcla and his associates some aid in accomplishing certain purposes in England, being the destruction doubtless of the power of the Despenser. The Earl of Carlisle was degraded from his honors of nobility and chivalry, and died the death of a traitor at Carlisle, March 2, 1322.

The sense of the difficulties with which he was surrounded, and this new example of the spirit of defection among those in whom he trusted, at length induced Edward to become seriously desirous of a long truce, preparatory to a solid peace with Scotland. Henry de Sully, the French knight made prisoner at Biland Abbey, acted as mediator, and a truce was agreed upon at a place called Thorpe. The ratification, dated at Berwick, 7th June, 1323, was made by Bruce in the express and avowed character of king of Scot-land, and was so accepted by the English monarch. The truce was concluded to endure for thirteen years.

Bruce had now leisure to direct his thoughts toward achieving peace with Rome; for his being in the state of excommunication, though a circumstance little regarded in his own dominions, must have operated greatly to his disadvantage in his intercourse with other states and kingdoms of Europe. The king despatched to Rome his nephew, the celebrated Randolph, earl of Moray, who conducted the negotiation with such tact and dexterity that he induced the pope to address a bull to his royal relation under the long-withheld title of king of Scotland. The delicacy of the discussion was so great that we are surprised to find a northern warrior, who scarce had breathed any air save that of the battlefield, capable of encountering and attaining the advantage over the subtle Italian priest in his own art of diplomacy. But the qualities which form a military character of the highest order are the same with those of the consummate politician. Shrewdness to arrange plans of attack, prudence to foresee and obviate those of his antagonist, perfect composure and acuteness in discerning and seizing every opportunity of advantage, hold an equal share in the composition of both. The king of England was extremely displeased with the pope, and intrigued so much at Rome to resume his influence, and use it to the prejudice of Robert, that his private machinations there were after-ward alleged by the Scots as the cause of their breaking the long truce which had been concluded between the countries.

Randolph's talents for negotiation were also displayed in effecting a league between Scotland and France, which the circumstances of the times seemed strongly to recommend, and which was entered into accordingly. This French alliance was productive of events very prejudicial to Scotland in after ages, often involving the country in war with England, when the interests of the nation would have strongly recommended neutrality. But these evil consequences were not so strongly apparent as the immediate advantage of securing the assistance and support of a wealthy and powerful nation, who were, like themselves, the natural enemies of England. The alliance with France, the consequences of which penetrate deep into future Scottish history, was of an offensive and defensive character. But its effects and obligations on the part of Scotland were declared to be suspended till the truce of Berwick should be ended.

Scotland had now, what was a novelty to her stormy history, a continuance of some years of peace. Several changes took place in the royal family. The first and happiest was the birth of a son to Bruce, who afterward succeeded his father by the title of David II. The joy of this event was allayed by the death of the king's son-in-law, the valiant Stewart. His wife, the Princess Marjory, had died soon after the birth of her son in 1326. The Stewart's behavior at Bannockburn when almost a boy, at the siege of Berwick, where he defended the place against the whole force of England, at Biland Abbey, and on other occasions, had raised his fame high among the Scottish champions of that heroic period.

In consequence of these changes in the family of the king, a parliament was held at Cambuskenneth, in July, 1326, in which it is worthy of observation that the representatives of the royal boroughs for the first time were admitted ; a sure sign of the reviving prosperity of the country, which has always kept pace with, or rather led to, the increasing importance of the towns.

In this parliament the estates took their oath of fealty to the infant David, son of Robert Bruce, and failing him or his heirs, to Robert Stewart, son of Walter Stewart, so lately lost and lamented, and Marjory, also deceased, the daughter of Robert by his first queen. The same parliament granted to the Bruce a tenth of the rents of all the lands of the kingdom of Scotland, to be levied agreeably to the valuation or extent, as it is termed, of Alexander II.

In the year 1327 a revolution took place in the government of England, which had a strong effect on the relations between that kingdom and Scotland. The remains of the Earl of Lancaster's party in the state had now arranged themselves under the ambitious Queen Isabella and her minion Mortimer, and accomplished the overthrow of Edward II.'s power, which the same faction had in vain at-tempted under Lancaster and Hartcla. The unfortunate king, more weak than wilful, then executed a compulsory resignation in favor of his son Edward III., and, thus de-throned, was imprisoned, and finally most cruelly murdered.

It is probable that Robert Bruce was determined to take advantage of the confusion occasioned by this convulsion in England to infringe the truce and renew the war, with the purpose of compelling an advantageous peace. For this he wanted not sufficiently fair pretexts, though it may be doubted whether he would have made use of them had not the opportunity for renewing the war, with a kingdom governed by a boy and divided by factions, seemed so particularly inviting. His ostensible motives, however, were, that, although an article of the treaty at Thorpe, confirmed at Berwick, provided that the spiritual excommunication pronounced against Bruce should be suspended till the termination of the truce, yet Edward, by underhand measures at the court of Rome, had endeavored to prejudice the cause of the Scottish king with the pontiff, and obstruct, if possible, the important object of his reconciliation with Rome. It was also alleged on the part of Scotland that the English cruisers had infringed the truce by interrupting the commerce between Flanders and Scotland, and particularly by the capture of various merchant vessels, for which no indemnity could be obtained.

The truth seems to be that Robert, having these causes or pretences for breaking off the truce, was desirous to avail himself of the opportunity afforded by the internal disturbances of England to bring matters to a final issue, and either to resume the war at a period which promised advantage, or obtain a distinct recognition of the independence of Scotland, and an acknowledgment of his own title to the crown. Froissart and other historians have intimated that the Scottish king desired also to avail himself of the opportunity to obtain in permanent sovereignty some part of the northern provinces of England. It is highly probable such a claim was stated and founded upon the possession of these counties by the Scottish kings in David I.'s time and before it. But it was probably mentioned in the usual policy of negotiators, who state their demands high that there may be room for concession. The serious prosecution of such a design neither accords with the Bruce's policy nor with his actual conduct. He well knew that Northumberland and Cumberland, over which Scotland had once a claim, were now become a part of England, and attached to that country by all the ties of national predilection, and that although a right to them might be conceded in an hour of distress, it would only create a perpetual cause of war for their recovery, when England should regain its superiority. Accordingly, in all his inroads, Bruce treated the border districts as part of England, to be plundered by his flying armies, while he never took measures either to conciliate the inhabitants or secure and garrison any places of strength for the appropriation of the country. The line drawn between the Tweed and Solway afforded to Scotland a strong frontier, which any advance to the southward must have rendered a weak and unprotected one. Accordingly, when triumphant in the war which he undertook, the sagacious Robert did not make any proposal for enlarging the territory of Scotland, while he took every means for insuring her independence.

Negotiations for continuing the truce, or converting it into a final peace, which seems the point aimed at by Bruce, were finally broken off between the two kingdoms; and Ed-ward III., already, though in early youth, animated by the martial spirit which no king of England possessed more strongly, appointed his forces to meet at Newcastle before the 29th of May, 1327, alleging that the king of Scotland had convoked his army to assemble at that day upon the borders, in breach of the truce concluded at Thorpe. The rendezvous took place, however, at York, where. a noble army convened under command of the young king, the future hero of Crecy, to which magnificent host had been added, at the expense of a large subsidy five hundred men-at-arms from Hainault, who were then reckoned the best soldiers in Europe. With the archers and light horse attendant on each man-at-arms, the number of these auxiliaries must be calculated as amounting to three thousand men. But, as it proved, their heavy horses and heavy armor rendered them ill qualified to act in the swampy, wild, and mountainous country where the seat of war was destined to lie. An accidental quarrel also took place at York between these knightly strangers and the English archers. Much blood was shed on both sides, and a discord created between the foreigners and natives of Edward's army, which seems to have caused embarrassment during the whole expedition.

In the meantime the Scottish forces, to the number of two or three thousand men-at-arms, well mounted and equipped for a day of battle, and a large body of their light cavalry, amounting to more than ten thousand, with many followers, who marched on horseback, but fought on foot, invaded the western border, according to their custom, and penetrating through the wild frontier of Cumberland, came down upon Weardale, in the bishopric of Durham, marking their course with more than their usual ferocity of devastation. These forces, superior to all known in Europe for irregular war-fare, were conducted by the wisdom, experience, and enter-prising courage of the famed Randolph and the good lord James Douglas, guided, doubtless, by the anxious instructions of the Bruce, who, though only fifty-three years of age, was affected by a disease of the blood, then termed the leprosy, which prevented his leading his armies in person.

The king of England, on the other hand, at the head of a princely army of sixty thousand, men, including five hundred belted knights, animated by the presence of the queen-mother and fifty ladies of the highest rank, who witnessed their departure, set out from York, in 13'27, with the determination of chastising the invaders and destroyers of his country. The high spirit of the youthful monarch was animated, besides, by a defiance which Bruce despatched to him by a herald, stating his determination to work his pleasure with fire and sword on the English frontiers.

The English army advanced in the most perfect order, and reached Northumberland, where the first intelligence they received of the enemy was by the smoke and flame of the villages suffering under presence of the invaders, tokens which arose conspicuous all around on the verge of the horizon. The English marched on these "melancholy beacons," but without reaching the authors of the mischief. During the space of three days, the light-armed and active Scots made 'their presence manifest by these marks of ravage, within five miles of the English army, but were not other-wise to be seen or brought to combat. After a vain and fatiguing pursuit which lasted three days, the English, in despair of overtaking their light-footed enemy, at length re-turned to the banks of the Tyne, determined to await the Scots on that river, and intercept their return to Scotland. This resolution seems to have been adopted in the vain imagination that the Scots, intimately acquainted with the whole of an extensive waste frontier, would choose in leaving England to use precisely the same road by which they had entered it. The halt on the banks of the Tyne proved as detrimental and embarrassing to the English, and especially to the auxiliaries, as the advance and pursuit had been. Provisions grew scarce, forage still scarcer; the rain poured down in torrents; the river became swollen: they had only wet wood to burn, and such bread to eat as they had carried for several days together at the croup of their saddles, wetted and soiled by the rain and the sweat of the horses. They were midway between Newcastle and Car-lisle, and too distant to receive assistance from either town.

After enduring these hardships for eight days, the soldiers became so mutinous that it was resolved upon, as the lesser evil, again to put them in movement, and march in quest of the Scottish army.

The march was therefore resumed in a southern direction, still with the hope to meet the enemy on their return, and land to the amount of a hundred pounds a year, with the honor of knighthood, was proclaimed through the host as the reward of any one who should bring certain notice where the Scottish army could be found; an unparalleled circumstance in war, considering that a king in his own country, and at the head of his own royal army, found such a measure necessary to procure information of the position of a host of twenty-five thousand men, who must have been within a half circle of twenty miles drawn round the English army. Many knights and squires set off in quest of information that might merit to secure the reward. Such of the English host as had been transferred to the north bank of the Tyne recrossed the river with difficulty and loss.

On the 31st of July, Thomas de Rokeby, a Yorkshire gentleman, returned to claim the promised reward. His acquaintance with the Scottish position was complete : he had been made prisoner, and brought before the Scottish leaders. He told them of the reward which had been promised, and the purpose of his approaching their encampment. On this statement Douglas and Randolph dismissed him without ransom, telling him to inform the English king they knew as little of his motions as he did of theirs (an assertion which may very well be doubted), but would be glad to meet him in their present position, which was within six or seven miles of his own army. The English arrayed themselves for battle, and advanced under the guidance of Rokeby, now Sir Thomas, but were mortified to find their enemies drawn up on the crest of a steep hill, at the foot of which ran the river Wear, through a rocky channel, so that an attack upon determined men and veteran soldiers, in such a position, must be attended with destruction to the assailants.

The king sent a herald to defy the Scots to a fair field of fight, according to the practice of chivalry : he offered either to withdraw his own troops from the northern bank, and permit the Scottish army to come over and form in array of battle ; or, if the enemy preferred to retire from the south-ern bank, and allow the English to cross the river unmolested, he declared his willingness to make the attack. But Douglas and Randolph knew too well their own inferiority in numbers and appointments, and the great advantage of their present situation, to embrace either alternative. They returned for answer, that they had entered England without the consent of the king and his barons; that they would abide in the realm as long as they pleased : "if the king dislikes our presence," said they, "let him pass the river, and do his best to chastise us." Thus the two armies continued facing each other; the Scots on the south bank of the Wear, the English on the north; the former subsisting on the herds of cattle which they drove in from the country on all hands, the latter living poorly on such provisions as they brought. with them : the former spending their night round immense fires, maintained in the greater profusion for the pleasure of wasting the English wood, and lodging in huts and lodges made of boughs; the English, who were on the depopulated and wasted side of the river, sleeping many of them in the open air, with their saddles for pillows, and holding their horses in their hands. They were annoyed by the Scottish bordermen winding their horns all night, and making a noise as if, says Froissart, "all the devils of hell had been there." Having thus faced each other for two or three days, the English, at dawn of the third or fourth morning, perceived the Scots' position was deserted and empty. They had decamped with much silence and celerity, and were soon found to have occupied a new position on the Wear, resembling the former in its general description, but even stronger, and masked by a wood, being part of an enclosed chase, called Stanhope Deer Park, the property of the bishop of Durham. Here the two hostile armies confronted each other as formerly; the English declining to attack on account of the strength of the Scottish position, the Scots refusing battle with an army superior to their own.

While they had little to do save to remark each other's equipment, the Scots saw among the English two novelties in the practice of war, which, though attended with very different consequences, are recorded by contemporaries with equal wonder. The one was a mode of adjusting the crest upon the helmet, called timbering; the other was the use of a new kind of artillery, then called engynes, or, by abbreviation, gynes, or cracks of war, from which we have derived the modern term guns. The effect produced by firearms in their rude state could not have been formidable, nor could it have been Augured that the invention would cause a general change in the art of war, since it is merely noticed as a novelty, along with a new and fantastic mode of ornamenting the helmet.

But the English did not remain long in the neighborhood of the Douglas in undisturbed slumbers. On the second night after their arrival in this new position, that enterprising leader left the Scottish camp with a select body of men-at-arms, crossed the Wear at a distance from the English encampment, and entered it, saying, as he passed the sleepy sentinels, in the manner and with the national exclamation of an English officer making the rounds : "Ha! Saint George! have we no ward here?" He reached the king's tent without discovery, cut asunder the ropes, and cried his war-cry of "Douglas ! Douglas!" The young king only escaped death or captivity by the fidelity of his chaplain and others of his household, who fell in his defence. Disappointed in his attempt on the king's person, which was his main object, Douglas cut his way through the English host, who were now gathering fast, broke from their encampment, and returned safe to the Scottish camp with fresh laurels in his helmet.

On the second night after this camisado, the English received intimation from a Scottish captive that all the army were commanded to hold themselves in readiness to march that evening, and to follow the banner of Douglas. The English conceived this to be a preparation for a repetition of the nocturnal attack, and lay on their arms all the night. But Douglas was too wise to trust to a renewal of the same stratagem. In the morning it was ascertained that the Scots, having left great fires burning in their camp, had marched off about midnight by a road which they had cut through a morass in their rear, supposed to be impassable.

The camp of the Scots, now deserted, furnished a curious spectacle to the English and the strangers. Four hundred beeves lay slaughtered for the use of their army. Three hundred caldrons, formed extemporaneously out of raw hides, were filled with the beef which the same skins had covered while the creatures were alive : hundreds of old brogues, made out of the same materials, lay about the tents. Five English prisoners were found bound to trees, three of whom had their legs broken, although whether in some previous action, or by a gratuitous piece of cruelty after they were made prisoners, does not appear. The hardy warriors of Douglas and Randolph lived exactly as drovers and other Scots of the lower order do at the present day, when bound on long journeys. A bag of oatmeal hung at the croup of the saddle, which also bore a plate of iron, called a girdle, on which the said oatmeal was baked into cakes as occasion offered : animal food was furnished by their plunder in an enemy's country in their own they subsisted well enough without. Salt, liquor of any kind, save water, as well as any variety of food, they entirely dispensed with.

Wanting so little, and carrying with them the means of satisfying themselves, it was easy to see why these light marauders remained concealed from the heavy-armed English, distressed alike by their numerous wants, and the apparatus they bore along to supply them, until it was their pleasure to become visible in Weardale, where they remained no longer than suited their own inclination. It soon appeared that Douglas and Randolph, having taken a circuitous course till they had turned the flank, were already advanced on their way homeward, to meet another Scottish army, which had crossed the frontier to extricate them, if it should be necessary.

The English retreated to Durham, dejected and distressed, especially the knights and men-at-arms of Hainault, many of whom, instead of the praise and plunder they hoped to acquire, had lost their valuable horses and property. They were dismissed, however, with thanks and reward; and it is said these troops, notwithstanding their total inefficiency, had cost the kingdom of England a sum equal to 320,0001. sterling of modern money.

King Edward III. next convoked a parliament at York, in which there appeared a tendency on the part of England to concede the main points on which proposals for peace had hitherto failed, by acknowledging the independence of Scotland, and the legitimate sovereignty of Bruce. These dispositions to reconciliation were much quickened by the sudden apparition of King Robert himself on the eastern frontier, where he besieged the castles of Norham and Alnwick, while a large division of his army burned and destroyed the open country, and the king himself rode about hunting from one park to another, as if on a pleasure party. The parliament at York, although the besieged castles made a gallant defence, agreed upon a truce, which it was now determined should be the introduction to a lasting peace. As a necessary preliminary, the English statesmen resolved formally to execute a resignation of all claims of dominion and superiority which had been assumed over the kingdom of Scotland, and agreed that all muniments or public instruments asserting or tending to support such a claim should be delivered up. This agreement was subscribed by the king on the 4th of March, 1328. Peace was afterward concluded at Edinburgh the 17th of March, 1328, and ratified at a parliament held at Northampton, the 4th of May, 1328. It was confirmed by a match agreed upon between the Princess Joanna, sister to Edward III., and David, son of Robert L, though both were as yet infants. Articles of strict amity were settled between the nations, without prejudice to the effect of the alliance between Scotland and France. Bruce renounced the privilege of assisting rebels of England, should such arise in Ireland, and Edward the power of encouraging those of the isles who might rise against Scotland. It was stipulated that all the charters and documents carried from Scotland by Edward I. should be restored, and the king of England was pledged to give his aid in the court of Rome toward the recall of the excommunication awarded against King Robert. Lastly, Scotland was to pay a sum of twenty thousand pounds, in consideration of these favorable terms. The borders were to be maintained in strict order on both sides, and the fatal coronation-stone was to be restored to Scotland. There was another separate obligation on the Scottish side, which led to most serious consequences in the subsequent reign. The seventh article of the peace of Northampton provided that certain English barons, Thomas, Lord Wake of Lidel, Henry de Beaumont, earl of Buchan, and Henry de Percy, should be restored to the lands and heritages in Scotland, whereof they had been deprived during the war by the king of Scots seizing them into his own hand. The execution of this article was deferred by the Scottish king, who was not, it may be conceived, very willing again to introduce English nobles as landholders into Scotland. The English mob, on their part, resisted the removal of the fatal stone from Westminster, where it had been deposited; a pertinacity which "superstitious eld" believed was its own punishment, since, with slow but sure attraction, the mystic influence of the magnetic palladium drew the Scottish Solomon, James VI., to the sovereignty in the kingdom where it was deposited. The deed called Ragman's Roll, being the list of the barons and men of note who subscribed the submission to Edward I. in 1296, was, however, delivered up to the Scots; and a more important pledge, the English princess Joanna, then only seven yea old, was placed in the custody of Bruce, to be united at a fitting age to her boy-bridegroom, David, who was himself two years younger.

The treaty of peace made at Northampton has been termed dishonorable to England, by her historians. But stipulations that are just and necessary in themselves can-not infer dishonor, however disadvantageous they may be. The treaty of Northampton was just, because the English had no title to the superiority of Scotland; and it was necessary, because Edward III. had no force to oppose the Scottish army, but was compelled to lie within the fortifications of York, and see the invaders destroy the country nearly to the banks of the Humber. What is alike demanded by justice and policy it may be mortifying but cannot be dishonor-able to concede; and before passing so heavy a censure on the Northampton parliament, these learned writers ought to have considered whether England possessed any right over Scotland; and, secondly, whether that which they claimed was an adequate motive for continuing an unsuccessful war.

Bruce seemed only to wait for the final deliverance of his country, to close his heroic career. He had retired, probably, for the purpose of enjoying a milder climate, to his castle of Cardross, on the Firth of Clyde, near Dumbarton. Here he lived in princely retirement, and, entertaining the nobles with rude hospitality, relieved by liberal doles of food the distresses of the poor. Nautical affairs seem to have engaged his attention very much, and he built vessels, with which he often went on the adjacent firth. He practiced falconry, being unequal to sustain the fatigue of hunting. We may add, for everything is interesting where Robert Bruce is the subject, that he kept a lion, and a fool named Patrick, as regular parts of his establishment. Meantime his disease (a species of leprosy, as we have already said, which had origin in the hardships and privations which he had sustained for so many years) gained ground upon his remaining strength.

When he found his end drew nigh, that great king summoned his barons and peers around him, and affectionately recommended his son to their care, then singling out the good Lord James of Douglas, fondly entreated of him, as his old friend and companion in arms, to cause the heart to be taken from his body after death, conjuring him to take the charge of transporting it to Palestine in redemption of the vow which he had made to go in person thither, when he was disentangled from the cares brought on him by the English wars. "Now the hour is come," he said, "I cannot avail myself of the opportunity, but must send my heart thither in place of my body; and a better knight than you, my dear and tried friend and comrade, to execute such a commission, the world holds not." All who were present wept bitterly around the bed, while the king, with almost his dying words, bequeathed this melancholy task to his best-beloved follower and champion. On the 7th of June, 1329, died Robert Bruce, at the almost premature age of fifty-five. He was buried at Dunfermline, where his tomb was opened in our time, and his relics again interred amid all the feelings of awe and admiration which such a sight tended naturally to inspire.

Remarkable in many things, there was this almost peculiar to Robert Bruce, that his life was divided into three distinct parts, which could scarcely be considered as belonging to the same individual. His youth was thoughtless, hasty, and fickle, and from the moment he began to appear in public life until the slaughter of the Red Comyn, and his final assumption of the crown, he appeared to have entertained no certain purpose beyond that of shifting with the shifting tide, like the other barons around him, ready, like them, to enter into hasty plans for the liberation of Scotland from the English yoke; but equally prompt to submit to the overwhelming power of Edward. Again, in a short but very active period of his life, he displayed the utmost steadiness, firmness, and constancy, sustaining, with unabated patience and determination, the loss of battles, the death of friends, the disappointment of hopes, and an uninterrupted series of disasters, which scarce a ray of hope appeared to brighten. This term of suffering extended from the field of Methven Wood till his return to Scotland from the island of Rachrin, after which time his career, whenever he was himself personally engaged, was almost uniformly successful, even till he obtained the object of his wishes the secure possession of an independent throne.

When these things are considered, we shall find reason to conclude that the misfortunes of the second or suffering period of Bruce's life had taught him lessons of constancy, of prudence, and of moderation, which were unknown to his early years, and tamed the hot and impetuous fire which his temper, like that of his brother Edward, naturally possessed. He never permitted the injuries of Edward I. (although three brothers had been cruelly executed by that monarch's orders) to provoke him to measures of retaliation; and his generous conduct to the prisoners at Bannockburn, as well as elsewhere, reflected equal honor on his sagacity and humanity. His manly spirit of chivalry was best evinced by a circumstance which happened in Ireland, where, when pursued by a superior force of English, he halted and offered battle at disadvantage, rather than abandon a poor washer-woman, who had been taken with the pains of labor, to the cruelty of the native Irish.

Robert Bruce's personal accomplishments in war stood so high, that he was universally esteemed one of the three best knights of Europe during that martial age, and gave many proofs of personal prowess. His achievements seem amply to vindicate this high estimation, since the three Highlanders slain in the retreat from Dairy, and Sir Henry de Bohun killed by his hand in front of the English army, evince the valorous knight, as the plans of his campaigns exhibit the prudent and sagacious leader. The Bruce's skill in the military art was of the highest order; and in his testament, as it is called, he bequeathed a legacy to his countrymen, which, had they known how to avail themselves of it, would have saved them the loss of many a bloody day.

These verses are thus given by Mr. Tytler. I have, for the sake of rendering them intelligible, adopted the plan of modern spelling, retaining the ancient language. The original verses are in Latin leonines.

"On foot should be all Scottish weire,
By hill and moss themselves to bear:
Let wood for walls be bow and spear
And battle-axe their fighting gear:
That enemies do them no drear,
In strait place cause keep all store,
And burn the plain land them before;
Then shall they pass away in haste,
When that they nothing find but waste;
With wiles and wakening of the night,
And mickle noises made on height;
Then shall they turn with great affray,
As they were chased with sword away.
This is the council and intent
Of good King Robert's testament."

If, however, his precepts could not save the Scottish nation from military losses, his example taught them to support the consequences with unshaken constancy. It is, indeed, to the example of this prince, and to the events of a reign so dear to Scotland, that we can distinctly trace that animated love of country which has been ever since so strong a characteristic of North Britons that it has been sometimes supposed to limit their affections and services so exclusively within the limits of their countrymen as to render that partiality a reproach which, liberally exercised, is subject for praise. In the day of Alexander III. and his predecessors, the various tribes whom these kings commanded were divided from each other by language and manners : it was only by residing within the same common country that they were forced into some sort of connection : but after Bruce's death we find little more mention of Scots, Galwegians, Picts, Saxons, or Strath-Clyde Britons. They had all, with the exception of the Highlanders, merged into the single denomination of Scots, and spoke generally the Anglo-Scottish language. This great change had been produced by the melting down of all petty distinctions and domestic differences in the crucible of necessity. In the wars with England all districts of the country had been equally oppressed, and almost all had been equally distinguished in combating and repelling the common enemy. There was scarce a district of Scotland that had not seen the Bruce's banner displayed, and had not sent forth brave men to support it; and so extensive were the king's wanderings, so numerous his travels, so strongly were felt the calls on which men were summoned from all quarters to support him, that petty distinctions were abolished; and the state, which, consisting of a variety of half-independent tribes, resembled an ill-constructed fagot, was now consolidated into one strong and inseparable stem, and deserved the name of a kingdom.

It is true that the great distinction between the Saxon and Gaelic races in dress, speech, and manner, still separated the Highlander from his lowland neighbor; but even this leading line of separation was considerably softened and broken in upon, during the civil wars and the reign of Robert Bruce. The power of the Macdougals, who had before Bruce's accession acted as independent chiefs, making peace and war at their pleasure, was broken both in Galloway and Argyleshire. The powerful Campbell, of Norman descent, but possessed of large Highland possessions by marriage with the heiress of a Celtic chief called Dermid O'Duine, obtained great part of their Argyleshire possessions, and being allied to the royal family, did much to secure the people of that country from relapsing into the barbarous independence of their ancestors. There were other great lowland barons settled in the Celtic regions, of whom it may be briefly remarked, that, like the Anglo-Norman barons who settled in Ireland beyond the margin of the Pale,' they speedily assumed the Celtic manners, assumed the authority of mountain-chiefs, so flattering to human pride, and, to conclude, adopted the titles and genealogies, however far-fetched, or even if actually forged, by which bards and seannachies connected their ancestry with the names of ancient Celtic heroes, whose descendants were entitled to honor and obedience. Yet still the Campbells and other great lowland or Norman families who were settled in the Highlands did not dream of pursuing the wild conduct, or aiming at the absolute independence affected by the Macdougals and other native princes among the Gael. The former owned the king's authority, and procured from the sovereign delegated powers under which they strengthened themselves, and governed, or, as it happened, oppressed, their neighbors. Thus the Highlands, though still a most disorderly part of Scotland, acknowledged in a great degree the authority of the king, which they had formerly disputed and contemned.

But the principal consolidating effect of this long struggle lay in the union which it had a tendency to accomplish between the higher and inferior orders. The barons and knights had, as we have before remarked, lost in a great measure the habit of considering themselves as members of any particular kingdom, or subjects of any particular king, longer than while they held fiefs within his jurisdiction. By relinquishing their fiefs they conceived they were entitled to choose their own master; and the right which any monarch possessed to claim their duty in respect of the place of their birth did not, in their opinion, infer any irrefragable tie of allegiance. When they joined the king's standard at the head of their vassals, they accounted themselves the Norman leaders of a race of foreigners, whose descent they despised, and whom, compared to themselves, they accounted barbarians. These loose relations between the nobles and their followers were altered and drawn more tight when the effect of long-continued war, repeated defeats, undaunted renewal of efforts, and final attainment of success, bound such lead ers as Douglas, Randolph, and Stewart to their warriors, and their warriors to them. The faithful brotherhood which mutual dangers and mutual conquests created between the leader and the followers on the one hand, between the king and the barons on the other the consciousness of a mutual object, which overcame all other considerations, and caused them to look upon themselves as men united in one common interest taught them at the same time the universal duty of all ranks to their common country, and the sentiment so spiritedly expressed by the venerable biographer of Bruce himself :