History Of Scotland Vol. 1 - Part 13

( Originally Published 1909 )

Douglas sets out on his Pilgrimage with the Bruce's Heart: is killed in Spain—Randolph assumes the Regency—Claims of the dis-inherited English Barons: they resolve to invade Scotland, and are headed by Edward Baliol—Death of Randolph—Earl of Mar chosen Regent—Battle of Dupplin Moor—Earl of March retreats from before Perth—Edward Baliol is chosen King, but instantly expelled—Sir Andrew Moray chosen Regent by the Royalists, but is made Prisoner—Siege of Berwick by the English—Battle of Halidon Hill—Great Loss of the Scots—The Loyalists only hold four Castles in Scotland—Edward Baliol cedes to England the southern Parts of Scotland—Quarrel among the Anglo-Scottish Barons—Liberation of Sir Andrew Moray—Randolph, Earl of Moray, and the Stewart are Regents —The Loyalists are active and successful—Defence of Lochleven —Defeat of Guy, Earl of Namur, on the Borough Moor—Earl of Athol (David de Strathbogie) defeated and slain

THE parliamentary settlement at Cambuskenneth had nominated Randolph as regent of the kingdom ; a choice which could not have been amended : but after-circumstances occasioned it to be much regretted that, by devolving on Douglas the perilous and distant expedition to Palestine, Bruce's bequest should have deprived the country of the services of the only noble who could have replaced those of the Earl of Moray in case of death or indisposition. And attention is so much riveted on this most unhappy circumstance, for such it certainly proved, that authors have endeavored to reconcile it to the sagacity of Robert Bruce, by imputing it to a refinement of policy on his part. They suppose that, fearing jealousy and emulation between Douglas and Randolph, when he himself was no longer on the scene, he found an honorable pretext to remove Douglas from Scotland, that Randolph, his nephew, might exercise undisputed authority. The recollection of the field of Stir-ling, where Douglas reined up his horse, lest he should seem to share Randolph's victory over Clifford; that, too, of Biland Abbey, where Randolph joined Douglas with only four squires, and served under him as a volunteer, seem to give assurance that these brave men were incapable of any emulation dangerous to their country or prejudicial to their loyalty; and it will be probably thought that Bruce nourished no such apprehensions, but, lying an excommunicated man upon his deathbed, was induced to propitiate Heaven by some act of devotion of unusual solemnity; a course so consistent with the religious doctrines universally received at the time that it requires no further explanation.

The issue of the expedition was nevertheless most disastrous to Scotland. The good Lord James, having the precious heart under his charge, set out for Palestine with a gallant retinue, and observing great state. He landed at Seville in his voyage, and learning that King Alphonso was at war with the Moors, his zeal to encounter the infidels induced him to offer his services. They were honorably and thankfully accepted; but having involved himself too far in pursuit of the retreating enemy, Douglas was surrounded by numbers of the infidels when there were not ten of his own suite left around his person; yet he might have retreated in safety had he not charged, with the intention of rescuing Sir William Sinclair, whom he saw borne down by a multitude. But the good knight failed in his generous purpose, and was slain by the superior number of the Moors. Scotland never lost a better worthy, at a period when his services were more needed. He united the romantic accomplishments of a knight of chivalry with the more solid talents of a great military leader. The relics of his train brought back the heart of the Bruce with the body of his faithful follower to their native country. The heart of the king was deposited in Melrose Abbey, and the corpse of Douglas was laid in the tomb of his ancestors, in the church of the same name. The good Lord James of Douglas left no legitimate issue; but a natural son of his, distinguished by the title of the Knight of Liddisdale, makes an important figure in the following pages, having inherited his father's military talents and courage, but unfortunately without possessing his pure and high-spirited sentiments of chivalrous loyalty.

We have dwelt at considerable length on the reign of Robert Bruce, so interesting from its strange variety of incident, and the important effects which it produced upon the kingdom of Scotland, which was in the course of the war so much agitated in all its provinces, that, as we before observed, all the slighter distinctions of the lowland in-habitants, so well defined in the earlier times, were broken down, dissolved, and merged in the grand national division of Britons into Scot and Englishman.

Randolph assumed the government of Scotland with the cautious wisdom which might have been expected from his experience. He was conscious that Edward III., though prudently observing the treaty of Northampton, felt its articles as a shameful dereliction of Edward I.'s claims, and that the people of England regarded it as a dishonorable composition, patched up by Queen Isabella and her usurping favorite, Mortimer, without regard to national honor, in order to get rid of the encumbrance of the Scottish war. Randolph also knew that the families of Comyns, still numerous and powerful in Scotland, had not forgotten the death of one kinsman at Dumfries, and the defeat of another, the Earl of Buchan, at Old Meldrum, with the general diminution of their family consequence. The young king's coronation was, however, solemnized at Scone (1331), with that of his youthful consort, Queen Joanna, and every precaution was used to render the government secure and stable. The pre-cautions were necessary, for a tempest was impending.

We have stated that an article in the treaty of Northampton stipulated that the Lords Beaumont and Wake of Liddel, with Sir Henry Percy, should be restored to their estates in Scotland, which had been declared forfeited by Robert Bruce. Of the three, Percy alone had been restored. It certainly appears that Robert Bruce had protracted the execution of this part of the treaty of Northampton with a degree of de-lay, for which it was easy to assign reasons in policy, though it might have been difficult to support them in equity. Lord Wake claimed the valley of Liddel, which formed the readiest gate into the Scottish west borders. Beaumont, a rich and powerful baron, claimed the earldom of Buchan, a re-mote district, where he might have supported himself in a species of independence, and caused much trouble to the Scottish government. Both were foreigners and English-men, and there was certainly risk in introducing them into the bosom of the kingdom. But this, though a reason for not having consented to the article, afforded no ground for departing from it. Mortimer's administration, who did not favor Beaumont, showed no desire to press his claim on Robert Bruce. But after Mortimer's fall, in 1330, the restoration of Beaumont and Wake was positively demanded by the young king. The Scottish regent had by this time acquired information that the English lords in question, and others, had engaged in a conspiracy to invade Scotland and dethrone, if possible, his youthful ward; a hostile enterprise which authorized Randolph to refuse the restitution demanded at such a conjuncture.

To understand the nature of this undertaking, the reader must be informed (and here a remarkable name in Scottish history again occurs) that John de Baliol, for a short time the vassal king of Scotland, died in obscurity at his hereditary castle in Normandy, shortly after the decisive battle of Bannockburn, leaving a son, Edward. With the hope of intimidating Bruce, Edward II. sent to Normandy for this young man, who then displayed a bold and adventurous character; and the younger Baliol accordingly appeared at the English court in 1324, and again in 1327, where, as the person among the disinherited who in his father's deposition had suffered the greatest forfeiture of all, though not at the hand of King Robert, he naturally took a lead in the undertaking of Wake, Beaumont, and the other lords and knights, who, like them, desired restoration of Scottish estates, though they could not, like them, plead the advantage of the express clause in the treaty of Northampton. These high-spirited and adventurous barons, assembling a small force of three hundred horse and a few foot-soldiers, determined with such slender means to attempt the subjugation of a kingdom which had of late repeatedly defied the whole strength of England.

Edward III. temporized. Under pretence of strictly observing the truce between the kingdoms, he prohibited the disinherited barons entering Scotland by the land frontier, but connived at their embarking at the obscure seaport of Ravenshire, near the mouth of the Humber, and sailing from thence in quest of the adventures which fortune should send them.

Although the attempt seemed a desperate one, the regent Randolph took even more than necessary pains to prepare for it. But the best means of resistance lay in his own high talents and long experience, and of the advantages of these his country was deprived in an evil hour. He died at Musselburgh, in 1332, when leading the Scottish army north-ward, to provide against the threatened descent of Baliol and his followers. A demise so critical was generally ascribed to poison; and a fugitive monk was pointed out as the alleged perpetrator of the deed.

It seemed as if the sound governance, military talent, and even common defence of the Scottish people, had died with Robert Bruce, Douglas, and Randolph. The veteran soldiers, indeed, survived, but without their leaders, and as useless as a blade deprived of its hilt : and the nobility, who had universally submitted to the talents of Randolph, now broke out into factious emulation. After much jealous cabal, Donald, earl of Mar, a man of very ordinary talent, although nephew to Robert Bruce, was elevated to the regency. This took place at Perth; and the ill-omened election was scarce made, when the Scots nobles learned that Baliol and the disinherited barons had entered the Firth of Forth on July 31, disembarked at Kinghorn, defeated the Earl of Fife, and, marching across the country, were encamped near Forteviot, with the river Earne in their front. Their host had been joined by many adherents, but did not in all amount to more than three thousand men. With an army more than ten times as numerous, the Earl of Mar en-camped upon Dupplin Moor, on the opposite or right bank of the river; while a second army, composed of southern barons, led by the Earl of March, was arrived within eight miles of the enemy's left flank. A more desperate situation could scarce be conceived than that of Baliol, and he relieved himself by a resolution which seemed to be as desperate. A stake planted by a secret adherent of the disinherited lords in a ford of the Earne indicated a secure place of crossing. The English army passed the river at midnight, on August 12, and in profound silence, and surprised the camp of their numerous enemies, who were taken at unawares, dizzy with sleep and wassail; for they had passed a night of intemperance, and totally neglected posting sentinels. The English made a most piteous carnage among their unresisting enemies. The young Earl of Moray showed the spirit of his father, and collecting his followers, at the head of a daunt-less but small body, drove back the enemy. But the incapacity of the Earl of Mar, who in the doubtful light of the dawning bore down in a confused mass without rule or order, overwhelmed instead of supporting Randolph and his little body of brave adherents. Opposition ended, the rout be-came totally irretrievable, and the swords of the enemy were blunted with slaughter. The loss of the Scottish army, much of which was occasioned by their being trodden down and stifled in their own disordered ranks, was about thirteen thousand men, being more than four times the entire amount of the army of Baliol.

After the battle of Dupplin, the invaders took possession of Perth without opposition. The fortifications of the place having been destroyed by Bruce, according to his usual policy, it was hastily protected with some palisades by its new masters. They were busied in this task when the southern army, led by the Earl of March, as before mentioned, was seen approaching the place. The English apprehended an instant, and, probably, an effectual assault. But when Beaumont saw the advancing banners halt on the high ground in the vicinity of the town, "Have no fear of these men," said the English lord; "we have friends among them." This was shortly after made apparent by the re-treat of the Earl of March, acting, it was supposed, in concert with the invader. An unsuccessful attempt was made on the fleet of the disinherited, which had coasted Fife, and was lying in the Tay, by Crab, the Flemish engineer who defended Berwick in the former reign. He succeeded in taking a fine vessel, called the Beaumont's cogue, but was defeated in his attempt on the others, and obliged to fly to Berwick.

The Earl of March led back and dispersed his army, and afterward showed his real sentiments by acceding once more to the English interest. It was not, however, till the Scots lost the battle of Halidon Hill that this powerful earl and other barons on the eastern marches of Scotland, who had late and unwillingly exchanged their allegiance to England for that to the Bruce, were, now that the constraint imposed by his authority was removed, desirous of returning to their dependence on the English crown, which they found, probably, more nominal than that exacted by their closer neighbors, the Scottish monarchs.

The foreign invasion having thus succeeded, though made on a scale wonderfully in contrast with the extent of the means prepared, the domestic conspiracy was made manifest. The family of Comyn in all its branches, all who resented the proceedings against David de Brechin and the other conspirators condemned by the Black Parliament; all who had suffered injury, or what they termed such, in the disturbed and violent times, when so much evil was inflicted and suffered on both sides; all, finally, who nourished ambitious projects of rising under the new government, or had incurred neglect during the old one, joined in conducting Edward Baliol to Scone, where he was crowned king in their presence, when (grief and shame to tell!) Sinclair, prelate of Dunkeld, whom the Bruce, on account of his gallantry, termed his own bishop, officiated at the ceremony of crowning a usurper, to the prejudice of his heroic patron's son.

However marvellous or mortifying this revolution certainly was, it was of a nature far more temporary than that which was effected by Edward I. after the battle of Falkirk. Then all seemed hopeless; and if some patriots still resisted, it was more in desperation than hope of success. Then, though there was a desire to destroy the English yoke, yet there was no agreement or common purpose as to the monarch or mode of government tó be substituted. Now there was no room for hesitation. The sound part of the kingdom, which was by far the larger portion, was fixed in the unanimous and steady resolution to replace upon the throne the race of the deliverer of Scotland. And the faith of those who adopted this generous resolution, although not uniformly unchangeable, was yet, as already mentioned, constancy itself, contrasted with the vacillations of former times.

Edward Baliol, in temporary possession of the Scottish crown, speedily showed his unworthiness to wear it. He hastened to the border, to which Edward III. was now advancing, with an army, to claim the lion's share among the disinherited barons, to whom he had afforded private countenance in their undertaking, and whose ultimate success was finally to depend upon his aid. Unwarned by his father's evil fortune, Edward Baliol renewed in all form the subjugation of the kingdom of Scotland, took on himself the feudal fetters which even his father had found it too de-grading to endure; and became bound, under an enormous penalty, to serve King Edward in his wars, he himself with two hundred, and his successors with one hundred men-at-arms, and to extend and strengthen the English frontiers by the cession of Berwick, and lands to the annual amount of two thousand pounds.

Having made this mean bargain with the king of England, and thereby, as he thought, secured himself the powerful assistance of that nation, Baliol was lying carelessly encamped at Annan, when he was surprised by a body of royalist horse, which had assembled at Moffat, and among whose leaders we find a young Randolph, second son of the regent, and brother to him who fell at Dupplin, an Archibald Douglas, brother to the good Lord James, a Simon Fraser, and others, whose names remind us of the wars of King Robert. Henry Baliol, brother of the intrusive king, was slain fighting bravely in his defence; many others of his followers were killed or made prisoners, and Edward himself was fain to escape to the English borders almost naked. Thus was Edward Baliol an exile and a fugitive, having scarcely possessed his usurped crown for three months.

Meantime the royalists had found a trustworthy leader in Sir Andrew Moray of Bothwell. In his youth he had been the companion of Wallace, and afterward the faithful follower of Bruce, who acknowledged his attachment by preferring him to the hand of his sister Christina, a widow, by the death of the heroic Christopher Seaton. Sir Andrew Moray was a soldier of the Bruce's school, calm, sagacious, and dauntlessly brave. His first measure of importance was to remove the persons of the young king and queen to France, where the faith of Philip was engaged for their safety and honorable maintenance. His next undertaking was less fortunate. He made an attempt to take by surprise the castle of Roxburgh, into which Baliol had then thrown himself, and imprudently engaged his own person in the dangerous enter-prise. Seeing a valiant esquire in his service, named Ralph Golding, endangered during the assault by a superior number of English, Sir Andrew pressed forward to his rescue, and was made prisoner, to the infinite prejudice of the royal cause; his place being poorly supplied by Archibald Douglas, although a brave soldier, and brother to the good Lord James. It was a great additional misfortune that, a short time after, in a severe battle which was fought on the borders, the knight of Liddisdale (Sir William Douglas, natural son of the good Lord James) was defeated in a considerable action, and made prisoner. He was treated with great rigor, and detained captive for two. years. Thus was Scotland deprived, in her hour of utmost need, of two more of her choicest soldiers.

Edward III. now prepared to assist his vassal Baliol, and, assembling a large army, May, 1333, came before Berwick, the securing of which place the Scots deemed justly an object of primary consequence, since Baliol had consented to surrender it to England. The Earl of March, whose apostasy was not yet suspected, was governor of the Castle of Berwick, and Sir Alexander Seaton of the town. They defended the place strenuously, and burned a large vessel with which the English assaulted the walls from the sea. But the garrison were reduced to such distress that they were compelled, according to the custom of the time, to agree to surrender, if not relieved by a certain day, and hostages were delivered to that effect, the son of Seaton, the governor, being one. Before the time appointed, the numerous army of Scotland appeared in sight of Berwick, and succeeded in throwing some knights and soldiers into the place. One of the former, Sir William Keith, assumed the command of the town.

But the caution of the English, who kept within their trenches and refused a general action, prevented the relief from accomplishing the raising of the siege. In order to effect this object, Douglas, imitating the policy of the Bruce in the like circumstances, entered Northumberland, and committed ravages, threatening to attack the castle of Bamborough, where the young English queen, Philippa, was at that time residing. But the strength of Bamborough defied a siege, and the regent presently received tidings from Berwick, announcing that, the place being reduced to extremity, King Edward had summoned the garrison to surrender, upon the treaty formerly entered into. They refused, alleging that they had received relief and reinforcements. The English king insisted that the succors thrown in not being sufficiently effectual to raise the siege, they were bound to yield up the place, just as much as if they had not been relieved at all; and he summoned them to absolute surrender, on the pain of putting to death the hostages. The Scotch historians say, that Edward actually did put young Seaton to death, within such short distance that his father might see the execution from the walls. But there is some obscurity resting on this cruel anecdote. Certain it is, that the citizens of Berwick, anxious for the fate of their own children, who were also among the number of hostages, became desirous to surrender, and refused any longer to defend the place. A second negotiation was entered into, whereby it was agreed that Berwick should be unconditionally surrendered, unless the Scots could succeed in reinforcing the town with two hundred men-at-arms, or defeating the English in a pitched battle under its walls.

Forgetting or disregarding the earnest admonition of King Robert, the regent Douglas resolved, on June 19, to commit the fate of the country to the risk of a decisive conflict. On crossing the Tweed and approaching Berwick on the northern side, the Scottish regent became aware of the army of England drawn up in four great battalions, with numerous bodies of archers to flank them. The ground which they occupied was the crest of an eminence called Halidon Hill. The Scots stationed themselves on the opposite ridge of high ground: the bottom which divided the hills was a morass. On the morning of the 20th, the Scots, with inconsiderate impetuosity, advanced to the onset. By doing so they exposed their whole army, while descending the hill and crossing the morass, to the constant and formidable discharge of the English archers, against whom they had no similar force to oppose. The inevitable consequence was, that they lost their ranks, and became embarrassed in the morass, where many were slain. But the nobles, who fought on foot in complete armor at the head of their followers, made a desperate effort to lead a great part of the army through the bog, and ascended the opposite hill. They came to close battle with the English, who, calm and in perfect order, were not long in repulsing an attack made by disordered ranks and breathless soldiers. The Scottish, after finding their efforts vain, endeavored to retreat. - In the mean-time, the pages and camp followers, who held the horses of the combatants, seeing the battle lost, began to fly, and carry off the horses along with them, without respect to the safety of their masters; so that the carnage in this bloody battle was very great, and numbers of the gentry and nobility fell.

The venerable Earl of Lennox, the faithful companion of Robert Bruce, the Earls of Ross, Carrick, Sutherland, Monteith, and Athol, were all slain, together with knights and barons to a countless number, and all with a trifling loss on the part of the English. The regent, Douglas him-self, wounded and made prisoner, died soon after he was taken. Berwick surrendered in consequence of this decisive action, and the Earl of March, governor of the castle, returned openly to the English interest, and was admitted to Edward's favor and confidence.

The Scots had suffered a loss in this action which was deemed by the English totally irrecoverable. "The Scottish wars are ended," said the public voice, "since no one of that nation remains having interest enough to raise an army, or skill sufficient to command one."

Through all Scotland, so lately the undisputed dominion of the Bruce, only four castles and a strong tower which did not reach to the importance of such a title, remained in possession of the royalists who adhered to his unfortunate son. These were, the impregnable fortresses of Dunbarton, which was secured by Malcolm Fleming; Lochleven, on an island in the lake of that name, defended by Alan de Vipont; Urquhart in Inverness, commanded by Thomas Lander; and Kildrummie, by Christina, the sister of King Robert Bruce, successively the widow of the Earl of Mar and of Christopher Seaton, and now the wife of the imprisoned Sir Andrew Moray. The fifth stronghold was at Lochdown, in Carrick, which John Thomson, a man of obscure birth and dauntless valor, the same apparently who led back from Ireland the shattered remainder of Edward Bruce's army, held out for his rightful sovereign.

Amid this scene of apparent submission, Edward Baliol held a mock parliament at Edinburgh for the gratification of his ally, the king of England. The obligation of homage and feudal service to the king of England was undertaken by Edward Baliol in the fullest extent; the town of Berwick was given up; and as King Edward was desirous to hold a large portion of Scotland under his immediate and direct authority, Baliol, by a solemn instrument, made an absolute surrender to England of the frontier provinces of Berwickshire, Roxburghshire, Selkirkshire, Peebleshire, and Dumfriesshire, together with Lothian itself, in all its three divisions; thus yielding up the whole land between the northern and southern Roman rampart, and restricting Scotland to the possessions beyond the estuaries of Forth and Clyde, inhabited of old by the free Caledonians. For the remnants of the kingdom, thus mutilated and dismembered, Baliol paid homage. At the same parliament, Baliol, by ample cessions and distributions of territory, gratified the disinherited lords, to whose valor he owed his extraordinary success.

A quarrel arose among these proud barons which had important consequences. The brother of Alexander de Mowbray died leaving daughters, but no male issue. Baliol preferred the brother of the deceased to his fiefs, as the heir male. Henry de Beaumont and David Hastings de Strathbogie, earls of Buchan and Athol, espoused the cause of the female heirs; and as Baliol would not listen to them, they left the court in that state of irritation which is easily ex-cited between such powerful subjects and a king of their own making. Alarmed at their defection, Baliol altered his decision, dismissed Alexander de Mowbray's claim, and thereby made him his mortal enemy, while he obtained only a dubious reconciliation with his opponents.

About this time Sir Andrew Moray of Bothwell, made prisoner, as we have seen, at Roxburgh, escaped or was liberated from prison; and his appearance in Scotland, with the discord among the English barons, was a signal for a general insurrection of the royalists. Moray was joined by the discontented Mowbray. Richard Talbot, marching southward, was attacked and defeated by William Keith of Galston, who had distinguished himself at the siege of Berwick. Sir Andrew Moray, with his new ally, Mowbray, besieged the powerful Henry de Beaumont in his fortress of Dundearg in Buchan, and by cutting off the supplies of water compelled him to surrender, and put him to a great ransom. The impulse became general through Scotland. The Brandanes or men of Bute arose against the English captain, slew him, and sent his head to their master, the steward of Scotland. In Annandale and in Ayrshire, where Bruce had his family estates, the royalists gathered on every side. The steward had distinguished himself by his bravery and generosity of disposition. By universal approbation of the royalists, this gallant and amiable young man was associated in the regency. The young Earl of Moray, son of the heroic Randolph, was returned from France, whither he had fled after the battle of Halidon Hill, and pushed David Hastings of Strathbogie so hard, that he not only compelled him to surrender, but found means to induce him to join the conqueror. Baliol, having seen the defeat of Talbot, the captivity of Beaumont, and the defection of the three most powerful of the disinherited, lost courage, and fled into England, thereby showing plainly how slight was his reliance on any support save such as came from that kingdom, and how steadily the great bulk of the Scottish nation were attached to the legitimate heir of Bruce.

In November, 1334, Edward III. advanced into Scotland for the double purpose of sustaining his vassal, and of securing those southern parts of Scotland which were ceded to him in property and full dominion. He met no opposition, for the Scots brought no army to the field; but he was assailed by want, and the stormy weather incident to the season; and so little was Edward's reputation raised by this incursion, that the Earl of March, a nobleman uniformly guided by his own interest, chose that very crisis to renounce the allegiance of England. This time serving baron probably foresaw the danger of his own power, since it was not likely that Edward would permit him to hold influence in a country which he was desirous in future of annexing to England, although he had little cared how loose the earl's uncontrolled allegiance sat on him while he was a vassal of Scotland.

Alan de Vipont, a Scottish royalist, who defended Lochleven Castle against the English, is said about this time to have been pressed hard by a John de Stirling, a Scottishman apparently, but commanding an army for Baliol: the garrison was straitened by a fort in the churchyard at Kinross; and it is alleged by an embankment drawn across the source of the river Leven, where it issues from the lake, the purpose of which was, to lay under water the island and castle, and thereby to make surrender inevitable. But Vipont took the opportunity of a cloudy night to send a boat unperceived down the lake, and cut through the embankment. The accumulated waters broke down in a furious inundation, which swept away the mound, and along with it the enemies who were quartered there for its defence. There are certainly some vestiges, at the exit of the Leven from the lake, which seem to confirm this singular tradition. Some historians only mention the destruction of the English fort by a sally from the garrison, without speaking of the embankment or inundation.

The chiefs of the loyal Scots now assembled a parliament at Dairsie, in Fife, April, 1335, in order to settle upon a combined plan of operations for the liberation of the country. But their counsels came to no useful or steady result, chiefly owing to the presumption of David de Strathbogie, earl of Athol, who assumed a species of superiority which the Scottish nobles could not endure. The parliament broke up in great disorder. It may be that this discord was attended with some consequences indirectly advantageous to Scot-land. As the parliament could not agree upon raising a large army, they could not commit the imprudence of risking a general action.

In the summer succeeding, on July 1, 1335, Edward again invaded Scotland on the east marches; while Baliol, with a body of Welsh troops and foreigners, entered on the west. They laid waste the country with fire and sword with emulous severity. The Scots kept King Robert's testament in recollection; and lurking among the woods and valleys, they fell by surprise upon such English as separated them-selves from the main body, or straggled from the march in their thirst for plunder.

In the end of July, a large body of Flemish men-at-arms landed at Berwick, in the capacity of auxiliaries to England. These strangers, commanded by Guy, count of Namur, conceiving the country entirely undefended, advanced fearlessly to Edinburgh, at that time an open town, the castle having been demolished. Count Guy had scarce arrived there, when an army of Scottish royalists, commanded by the Earls of Moray and March and Sir Alexander Ramsay, at-tacked him. The battle took place on the Borough Moor, and was fiercely disputed for some time ; till the Knight of Liddisdale, who had escaped or been released from his English captivity, swept down from the Pentland Hills, and turned the scale of battle. The Flemings retired into the city, and fought their way as they retreated up to the hill where the castle lay in ruins. A close encounter took place during the whole way, and tradition long pointed out the spot at the foot of the Bow, where David de Annand, a Scottish knight of superhuman strength, struck down with his battle-axe one of these mailed foreigners, killing horse and man, and shattering a huge flagstone in the pavement, by a single blow. The Flemings erected a breastwork or fortification on the Castle Hill by killing their horses, and making a barricade of the carcasses. This, however, could be but a temporary resource, and they were speedily obliged to capitulate. The Scots treated their valiant prisoners with much courtesy, releasing them on their parole not to fight against David, and sending an escort to see the foreigners safe into England. Unhappily, the regent Earl of Moray went himself with the party, and on his return toward Lothian, after dismissing the Flemings, was attacked by William de Pressen, commander of the English garrison of Jedburgh Castle, his followers routed, and himself made prisoner, and thrown into Bamborough Castle. Thus the services of the worthy successor of Randolph were, for a time, lost to his country. The English continued their ravages, and with such success that men were reduced to use that sort of lip-homage which the heart refuses. "If you asked a grown-up person," says an old historian, "who was his king, he dared to make no other answer save by naming Edward Baliol; while the undissembling frankness of childhood answered the same question with the name of David Bruce."

Scotland being in this low condition, and Edward having exercised such means of subduing the spirit of insurrection as could be brought against a disposition which showed itself everywhere, but was tangible nowhere, the English king began to think of returning to his own kingdom. But previously he received the submission of the versatile Earl of Athol, restored to that powerful nobleman his large English estates, and named him regent or governor of Scotland under Baliol. The steward, over whom this David de Strathbogie seems to have possessed but too much influence, was also induced, contrary to his interests, as nearly concerned in the succession, to acknowledge Baliol as his sovereign. After fortifying Perth, and rebuilding the castles of Edinburgh and Stirling, Edward III. returned to his own dominions.

The irresistible pressure of immediate superiority of force being once more removed, the spirit of determined resistance began again to manifest itself. The Scottish loyalists once more chose for their head Sir Andrew Moray of Bothwell, the friend of Wallace, the brother-in-law of Bruce. Athol, eager to give himself consequence in the eyes of Edward and obliterate the recollection of his prior tergiversations, had determined to besiege the castle of Kildrummie in Aberdeenshire, the residence of Christina, the sister of Robert Bruce, and wife of Sir Andrew Moray. Moray, joined by the Earl of March and the Knight of Liddisdale, flew to the relief of the place. They assembled about fifteen hundred followers, partly men of Lothian and Berwickshire, partly from the territory of Kildrummie. They came suddenly on the Earl of Athol, then lying in the forest of Kilblain, whose troops, suddenly and fiercely attacked in a species of pass, gave way on all sides. The Earl of Athol was steady in personal courage, though fickle in political attachment : he looked round with scorn on his fugitive followers, and striking his hand on a huge rock which lay near him, said, "Thou and I will this day fly together." Five knights of his household abode, fought, and fell with him, refusing all quarter. The death of the Earl of Athol was considered by the loyalists as a most favorable event, as his power, and latterly his inclination also, made him a sworn persecutor of their party.

Edward himself advanced to avenge the death of a powerful, if not a steady, partisan. He led into Scotland a numerous army, which wasted the country as far north as Inverness. But though he was an enemy skilful to omit no advantage which accident, the situation of ground, or the circumstances of weather afford, yet, in the far-sighted prudence of the experienced Sir Andrew Moray, Edward III. found a complete match for his youthful ardor, and was no more able to bring his sagacious opponent to action than he had been to engage Douglas and Randolph in the Northumbrian campaign of 1327. The following instance of Moray's skill, courage, and discipline, may give some idea of the composure with which he baffled the ardent valor of the hero of Crecy.

When at Perth, Edward was informed that the Scottish regent was lying with his forces in the forest of Stronkaltire (probably a portion of the famous wood of Birnam), near the foot of the Grampians, and on the verge of the Highlands. The most skilful dispositions were made by the king to surround the enemy, and the English had already moved several divisions on different parts of the forest with a view to prevent their escape. Sir Andrew Moray was hearing mass in a chapel in the forest, when the Scottish scouts came to tell him of the approach of the enemy. He caused them to be silent till the divine service was finished. Mass being ended, his breathless messengers informed him that the English were at hand. "Be it so," said Moray; "no need of hurry." He then armed himself deliberately, and caused his war-horse to be brought him. When in the act of mounting, he perceived a girth had failed. With the utmost de-liberation the veteran warrior called for a certain coffer, out of which he took a hide of leather, and having cut from it a strap proper for the purpose, sitting down on the bank, he composedly mended the girth with his own hands, although, to the great anxiety of all around him, news came in on all hands of the close approach of the enemy from different points; and old warriors, who were present, confessed to the historian, Winton, prior of Lochleven, that in their life they had never passed such anxious moments as during the mending of that saddle-girth. But Moray knew his time and his business, and when he mounted and placed himself at the head of his men, whom his own composure had taught to have the most undoubting reliance on him, he drew them up in a close column, and while the English sought an opportunity of attack, he led his band leisurely from their presence, and vanished in safety through a defile which he had kept open in his rear.

Edward III. penetrated as far as the rich province of Moray, carrying devastation wherever he came. But he had then done the utmost which was in his power, and was compelled to retreat by the consequences to his own army of the very desolation which they themselves had made. He repaired the castles held by English garrisons through the kingdom, and marched back to England, leaving Scotland apparently quiet. But no sooner were the weight and presence of the English host withdrawn, than all the Scottish patriots were again in arms in every quarter of the country, assaulting and storming, or surprising by stratagem, the garrisons that had been left to overawe them, and proving that they were worthy to have been subjects of the Bruce, by the intelligence with which they executed his precepts. The regent distinguished himself in this war as much by his alertness in seizing opportunities of advantage, as he had done when opposed to Edward by the prudence which affords none to the enemy.

In the meantime war broke out between France and England. On the 7th of October, 1337, King Edward publicly asserted his claim to the throne of that kingdom; yet, with this new and more dazzling object in his view, he did not turn his eyes from the conquest of Scotland. The Earls of Salisbury, Arundel, and Norfolk, were intrusted with the command of the northern army, and the former laid siege to the strong castle of Dunbar, defended, in the absence of the Earl of March, by his wife, the daughter of the heroic Thomas Randolph, earl of Moray, and animated by a portion of his courage. This lady, whom the common people used to call Black Agnes of Dunbar, was one of those, by whose encouragement, according to a phrase of Froissart, a man may become of double strength in the hour of danger. She daily made the round of the walls in sight of besiegers and besieged, and caused the maidens of her train to wipe the battlements with their handkerchiefs, when the stones from the engines struck them, as if in scorn of the English artillery. At one time, by engaging him in a pretended plot to receive surrender of the castle from a traitorous party within, she had wellnigh made the Earl of Salisbury her prisoner. On another occasion, an arrow shot by an archer of her train struck to the heart an English knight, in spite of his being completely armed. "There goes one of my lady's tiring-pins," said Montague, earl of Salisbury : "the countess's love-shafts pierce to the heart." At another time, the English advancing to the walls the machine called a sow (mentioned in the account of the siege of Berwick, p. 150), Agnes called out to the English lord in a sort of rhyme,

"Beware, Montagow,
For farrow shall thy sow."

A huge rock, prepared for the occasion, was projected against the sow, and dashed the engine to pieces. The English general, having exhausted the invention of his engineers to no purpose, resolved to convert the siege into a blockade, and reduce Dunbar by famine. As he had a considerable fleet, he might have succeeded in his purpose; but the good knight, Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalwolsey, contrived, by means of a light vessel and a dark night, to throw into the castle a supply of provisions and soldiers. This was announced to the besiegers by a sally; and they were so much disheartened as to raise the siege, which had lasted five months, and retire from before Dunbar with little honor.

Similar advantages were gained by the patriots all through Scotland. The state, indeed, sustained a heavy loss in the death of Sir Andrew Moray, the regent, who, after all his battles and dangers, expired in peace at his castle of Avoch, in Ross. Brother-in-law of the Bruce, and one of the last of his leaders, he evinced till his dying day the spirit of valor, sagacity, and patriotism, which merited that distinguished alliance. He is censured for the desolating and wasteful warfare which he carried on; but it must be remembered, that to burn the open country before the enemy was a principal maxim in Bruce's dreadful lessons of defensive war.

The steward of Scotland, freed from the baneful influence which the Anglicized Earl of Athol had exercised over him, was now chosen sole regent, and showed himself worthy of the trust. He commenced the siege of Perth, assisted by five ships of war and some men-at-arms, which were sent from France. The regent was assisted in pressing this siege by the abilities of William Bullock, an ecclesiastic who loved the battlefield or the political scenes of the cabinet better than mass or matins. Edward Baliol, who knew Bullock's ' abilities, had raised him to be his chancellor of Scotland and made him governor of a strong castle in Cupar. But when Edward's presence with an army failed to establish Baliol's power in Scotland, this military churchman became sagacious of an approaching change, stubborn fidelity being by no means the virtue of the day. His talents were employed by the regent in pressing on the siege of Stirling, which was boldly defended. He showed the hardihood of his character during a total eclipse of the sun, which took place in the midst of his operations. While all others, both in the besieging army and garrison, were sinking under their superstitious fears, Bullock took advantage of the darkness to wheel his military engines so close to the wall that when the sunshine returned the besieged found themselves under the necessity of surrendering. The steward was equally successful in reducing Stirling and other English posts to the north of the Forth, and bringing the whole country to the peace of King David.

Other Scottish leaders distinguished themselves in different provinces. Sir William Douglas, the Knight of Liddisdale, was active in the south of Scotland. He totally expelled the English from Teviotdale, reduced the strong castle of Hermitage, defeated Roland de Vaux, and having engaged Sir Laurence Abernethy, an Anglicized Scotsman, three times in one day, finally overcame him in a fourth encounter, made him prisoner, and dispersed his followers. A still more im portant acquisition on the Scottish part was that of Edinburgh Castle, which Edward III. had fortified when in Scotland during his last campaign. The Knight of Liddisdale engaged a sturdy mariner, called John Currie, to receive into his bark a number of proved soldiers. John Currie, assuming the character of an English shipmaster, entered the castle with a number of men disguised in mariners' caps and habits, and bearing barrels and hampers supposed to contain wine and provisions : these they threw down in the gateway, so as to prevent the gates being shut, and, drawing their swords, rushed on the sentinels, and being seconded by the Knight of Liddisdale and some chosen men who lay in ambush near the entrance, thy overpowered the English garrison and expelled them from the castle.

Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalwolsey, the same who gallantly relieved the castle of Dunbar, yielded to none of the champions whom we have named in devotion to the cause of his country. As his own estates and influence lay in Lothian and near Edinburgh, he was wont, even when the English were in possession of the capital, to reside with a strong band of soldiers among the crags, glens, and caverns of the romantic vicinity of Roslin. From thence he sallied forth to annoy the English, on whom, according to the phrase of the times, he did great vassalage. He often rode into Northumberland, committed destructive forays, and returned safe to his impregnable retreat. His fame for chivalry was so high that no Scottish youth of that neighborhood was held worthy of esteem unless he had proved his gallantry by riding for some time in Ramsay's band.

By the achievements of these brave men the English force was so much weakened throughout Scotland, and the government of the legal monarch so completely restored, that it was thought advisable that King David and his consort should return from France to their own kingdom. They landed at the small port of Inverbervie in Kincardineshire in the month of May, 1341.

In the same spring Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalwolsey added to his long list of services the important acquisition of the castle of Roxburgh, which, according to the desperate fashion of the times, he took by escalade.

Unhappily, the mode which the young and inexperienced king took to reward this gallant action proved fatal to the brave knight by whom it was achieved. David conferred on Ramsay the sheriffdom of Roxburgh as a fitting distinction to one who had taken the principal fortress of the county. The Knight of Liddisdale, who had large possessions in Boxburghshire, and pretensions by his services to the sheriffdom, was deeply offended by the preference given to Ramsay. From being Sir Alexander's friend and companion in arms, he became his mortal enemy, and nothing less than his death would appease the rancor of his hatred. He came upon Sir Alexander Ramsay, accompanied with an armed force, while he was exercising justice at Hawick, dispersed his few attendants, wounded him while on the bench of justice, threw him on a horse, and through many a wild bog and mountain path carried him to his solitary and desolate castle of the Hermit-age, where he cast him into the dungeon of that lonely and darksome fortress. The noble captive was left with his rank-ling wounds to struggle with thirst and hunger, supporting for some time a miserable existence by means of grain which fell from a granary above, until death relieved him from suffering.

The most disgraceful part of this hideous story remains to be told. David, whose favor, imprudently evinced, had caused the murder of the noble Ramsay, saw himself obliged, by the weakness of his government and the pressure of the disorderly times, not only to pardon the inhuman assassin, but to grace him with the keeping of the castle of Roxburgh, which the valor of his murdered victim had won from the enemy, and the sheriffdom of the county, which was rendered vacant by his murder. It is scarce possible to give a more deplorable instance of those wretched times, in which the great stood above all law, human and divine, and indulged their furious passions not only with impunity but with an enlarged scope to their ambition. Neither was the act of cruelty attended with any blot upon his fame, since the Knight of Liddisdale, who, before Ramsay's murder, had been distinguished by the splendid title of the Flower of Chivalry, continued to retain it after that atrocious trans-action.

A fate similar to that of Ramsay was sustained by a victim less deserving of pity. Bullock, the fighting ecclesiastic, who had deserted the standards of England for those of Scotland, and had taken so great a share in the reduction of Perth, was suddenly, by the royal order, seized on by Sir David Berkeley, thrown into the castle of Lochendorb in Morayshire, and there, like Ramsay, starved to death. A Scottish historian makes this melancholy remark on his fate : "It is an ancient saying that neither the powerful, nor the valiant, nor the wise, long flourish in Scotland since envy obtaineth the mastery of them all."

In the meanwhile the war of the contending nations disturbed the frontiers with mutual incursions, which added much to public misery, though they did little toward the decision of the war; and casting our eyes back on the-consequences of continued hostilities of the most desolating nature, we see effects so frightful as if God and man had alike determined upon the total destruction of the country.

Between the desultory ravages of the English and those exercised upon system by the Scottish leaders, all the regular practice of agriculture was interrupted year after year, and the produce in a great measure destroyed. A great famine was the consequence; the land that once bore crops was left uncultivated, waste, and overgrown with briers and thickets, while wolves and wild deer approached, contrary to their nature, the dwellings of man. The starving sufferers were compelled to feed on substances most abhorrent to human appetite; and one wretch, called Christian Cleik, with his wife, subsisted on the flesh of children whom they caught in traps and devoured. These wretched cannibals were detected, condemned, and burned to death.