homage paid him as Lord Paramount of Scotland. In his prison, first at
Richmond, and then at Falaise in Normandy, William’s spirit was so far
broken that he acceded to Henry’s demands, and the Scottish parliament,
to obtain the release of their king, ratified a dishonourable treaty. At
York the required homage was publicly paid; and for fifteen years it
continued in full force. But in 1189, Henry’s son, Richard, the Lion-
hearted, on the eve of his crusade to the Holy Land,—desirous to place
his home affairs in safety during his absence, renounced the claim of
general homage extorted from William,—reserving only such homage as was
anciently rendered by Malcolm Canmore.
And in almost unbroken peace between the two countries for upwards of a
century, the generous conduct of Richard bore good fruit. Then a course
of accidents, which nearly extinguished the Scottish royal family, gave
an English monarch the opportunity for reviving old pretensions to
supremacy, and was thus the cause of renewed wars and national
animosities.
William died in 1214, and was succeeded by his son, Alexander III. He
reigned thirty-five years, and being of good parts, and with
considerable force of character, did much for the progress of Scotland
in the arts of civilization. He was succeeded in 1249 by his son,
Alexander III., then only eight years of age. He married the daughter of
Henry III., but the children of the marriage died young. The chief
trouble of his reign was from Norwegian invasions, but in 1263 Alexander
defeated Haco, King of Norway, at Largs, at the mouth of the Firth of
Clyde. By this victory Scotland obtained possession of the Hebrides and
the Isle of Man. Alexander was accidentally killed in 1263; riding too
near the edge of a cliff on the Fifeshire coast, near Kinghorn, in the
dusk of the evening, his horse stumbled and threw him over the cliff.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
How Scotland became a Free Nation.
We are not attempting to present a detailed history of Scotland: such a
history has both a general and a national value, and there has been no
lack of writers of ability to give to it their best of thought and of
research. But as having been a supreme crisis in this history, and as
having placed Scotland high on the list of free nations, we give a brief
summary of events at the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the
fourteenth century.
The English King, Edward the First, who has been called the greatest of
the Plantagenets, was led to undertake the conquest of Scotland. He
found that insurgent spirits amongst his own subjects therein found
refuge, and that France—the natural enemy of England—was generally in
alliance with Scotland. His designs on Scotland had three separate
phases. First: King Alexander the Third of Scotland having died without
immediate issue, the crown devolved upon his grand-daughter, Margaret,
daughter of Eric, King of Norway. The young princess is called in
history the Maid of Norway. Edward proposed a marriage between her and
his own eldest son, also named Edward. A treaty for this marriage was
entered into. It was one of the might-have-beens of history; had it
taken place, and been fruitful, the union of the crowns might have been
anticipated by over three centuries, and the after-histories of the two
countries very different. But on her voyage to take possession of her
crown, Margaret sickened; she landed at Orkney, and there died,
September, 1290.
Then there were various claimants to the crown, the rights of the
claimants dating back several generations. All having their partizans,
and anarchy and conflict appearing imminent, it was agreed that Edward
should be arbitrator. He here saw an opening for the revival of what
might now have been thought the obsolete claim of the English sovereign
to be recognised as Lord Paramount of Scotland. Two of the candidates,
Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale, and John Baliol, Lord of Galloway, were
found to be nearer in blood to the throne than all the others. Both of
them traced their descent from daughters of David, Earl of Huntingdon,
brother of King William, called _The Lion_. Edward gave his decision in
favour of Baliol, as being descended from the elder daughter; but he
declared that the crown was to be held under him as feudal superior; and
Baliol did homage to Edward as to his lord sovereign, and was summoned
as a peer to the English Parliament.
[Illustration: EDWARD I.]
Edward soon shewed that his claim was not to be a merely formal one; he
demanded the surrender of three important Scottish fortresses. Baliol
would himself have submitted to this arrogant demand, but at the
instigation of the nobles he sent a refusal, and a formal renunciation
of his vassalage. In a war which in 1294 broke out between France and
England, Scotland allied itself with France. Then Edward assembled a
powerful army and invaded Scotland. He gained a victory near Dunbar, and
made a triumphant march through the Lowlands. The country was divided
within itself; the powerful Bruce faction was arrayed against that of
Baliol. Baliol made a cringing submission to Edward; and Bruce sued for
the nominal throne, as tributary sovereign of Scotland. “Think’st thou I
am to conquer a kingdom for thee?” was Edward’s stern reply; and he
forthwith took measures to make evident his purpose of keeping Scotland
to himself. He appointed an English nobleman his viceroy, garrisoned the
fortresses with English troops, and removed to London the regalia and
the official records of the Kingdom, and also the legendary stone upon
which the Scottish Kings had sat on their coronation. It was the very
nadir in the cycle of Scottish history.
Then came revolts, with varied measures of success. A notable hero, Sir
William Wallace, whose name yet lives in Scottish hearts as the very
incarnation of patriotism and courage, took the leadership in an all but
successful insurrection. But the larger, better appointed, and better
disciplined armies of Edward again placed Scotland under his iron heel.
Brave Wallace was, through treachery, taken prisoner, carried up to
London, and tried for treason at Westminster Hall. “I never could be a
traitor to Edward, for I was never his subject,” was Wallace’s defence:
the English judges condemned him to a traitor’s death. With the
indignities customary in these semi-barbarous times, he was executed on
Tower Hill, 23rd August, 1305.
Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, a grandson of the Bruce who was Baliol’s
rival for the Crown, had been one of Wallace’s ablest lieutenants. He
had a fine person, was brave and strong, was moreover prudent and
skilful, fitted to be a leader of men, both in the council and on the
battle-field. He had the faults of his times—could be passionate, and in
his passion cruel and relentless. He now aimed at the sovereignty, and
within a year of the death of Wallace, had himself, with a miniature
court and slender following, crowned King at Scone. When Edward heard of
this he was exceedingly wroth, and would himself again go into Scotland
and stamp out all the embers of rebellion. In 1307, he did accompany an
army through Cumberland, to within three miles of the Scottish border.
But ruthless and determined in spirit, he was now old and feeble in
body, and
“Hate and fury ill-supplied
The stream of life’s exhausted tide.”
He was stricken by mortal sickness and died, 6th July, 1307. Before he
died he made his son promise to carry his unburied corpse with the army
until Scotland was again fully conquered. The Second Edward did not
carry out that savage injunction, but had his father buried in
Westminster Abbey, where his tomb styles him, with greater truth than is
found in many monumental inscriptions, “The hammer of Scotland.”
For years Bruce was little other than a guerilla chief, sometimes even a
fugitive, hiding in highland fastnesses, or in the Western Isles. He was
under the pope’s excommunication, for that in a quarrel within the walls
of a consecrated church in Dumfries he had slain Sir John Comyn, who had
also certain hereditary claims to the throne. But he was possessed of
wonderful perseverance. Edward II. had, by the withdrawal of his
father’s great army of invasion, encouraged the Scottish hopes of
independence. In different parts of the country there were partial
insurrections against English rule and English garrisons. In March,
1313, by a sudden _coup_, Edinburgh Castle was taken. Gradually the
greater number of the Scottish nobles, with their retainers, declared
for Bruce. By the early spring of 1314, all the important towns except
Stirling had passed out of English possession; and it was to be given up
unless relieved before midsummer.
Such a state of things would not have come about in the days of the
elder Edward, before he would have been with an army in Scotland, to
drive back the tide of insurrection. Now, instigated by his counsellors
to save Stirling, Edward the Second assembled one of the largest armies
which had ever been under the command of an English King. One hundred
thousand men are said to have crossed the Scottish border, the flower of
English chivalry—the best trained archers in the world—soldiers from
France, Welsh and Irish, a mighty host. Bruce with all his efforts could
not bring into the field more than one disciplined soldier for every
three such in the enemy’s ranks; but there were many loose camp-
followers, half-armed and undisciplined, who, if their only aim was
plunder, could yet harass and cut off stragglers of an army on the
march. Bruce himself was a consummate general, possessing the entire
confidence of his men; he had the choice of his ground, and he had as
lieutenants his brave brother Edward, his nephew Randolph, and his
faithful follower Lord James Douglas, all commanding men with whom they
had in previous hard fights stood shoulder to shoulder and achieved
victory.
On the afternoon of the 23rd of June, 1314, the mighty English host
rolled on in splendid order, towards the plain near Stirling, where
Bruce, taking every advantage of the ground, had posted his army. In the
evening there were a few skirmishes, and the Bruce had a personal
encounter with, and slew an English knight, De Bohun. Such an act—if it
could have been honourably avoided—was not generalship, but in those
days personal prowess in the field was an essential for leadership.
On the next morning, before daybreak, the battle began, it is named “of
Bannockburn,” from a small stream, the Bannock, on the right of Bruce’s
position. We have no need to say that, despite of numbers and discipline
being on the side of the English, and courage a common quality in both
armies, it was a decisive Scottish victory. The causes of this result
are not far to seek; Bruce was the better general, and he had a position
from which he could bring a superior force to bear upon any single point
of attack. The course of the English cavalry lay through morass and
broken ground; and by pitfalls and barriers, Bruce had made this ground
more difficult and dangerous. He closed at the earliest possible moment
with those terrible foes at a distance—the English archers; his object
was to throw the enemy into confusion at some one point, knowing how
such confusion spreads itself. The very numbers of the English told
against their united action—more than the half of them were never
actually engaged in the fight. And when some early advantages showed in
favour of the Scots, their motley crowd of camp followers thought that
victory was assured, and, eager for plunder and revenge, they burst down
the slopes with wild shouts and gesticulations. And thus a partial
confusion in the English ranks became a general panic, a rout, and a
“save-himself-who-can” flight from the field. With the Douglas in hot
pursuit, Edward rode across the country to Dunbar, where he found a
small vessel by which he sailed to England.
And thus—by one day’s devoted patriotism, by steady valour and skilful
generalship, as Scottish historians say,—by hap-hazard, stratagem, and
surprise, as others have alleged, Robert Bruce secured his crown, and
could now really be called _Rex Scotorum_, King of Scots. And Scotland
itself rose, by that day’s event, from the dust of conquest and
depression into a free and independent state, to be governed by its own
laws and ruled by its own princes. There have been since that day some
disastrous Scottish defeats by English arms, and Scotland has often felt
itself in the shadow of a superior power; but the halo of Bannockburn
has never been obscured. It was not only a glorious day for Scotland,
but an auspicious one for England also; the Scottish people could, after
a preliminary union of the two crowns in a sovereign common to both
countries, frankly, and on equal terms, join with England in a national
union; together, hand in hand, going down the stream of history; in weal
and in woe standing by and aiding each other.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scotland in the Two Hundred Years following Bannockburn.
Never in all its previous history had Scotland been so united within
itself, or held so important a place amongst other nations, as during
the reign of Robert Bruce.
In what are called the dark ages of Europe, feudalism was a general
institution amongst the western nations. The Conqueror introduced this
phase of society into England; and it soon thereafter spread into
Scotland, where clanship had been its forerunner. Under the feudal
system, the King was chief; the land of the nation was nominally his, to
bestow in large estates on the nobles and great barons; these became his
vassals, under tenure obligations to do him homage, to take part, with
their retainers, in his wars, and to attend and take part in the Great
Councils which he summoned. The lesser barons, or fief-holders met in
their districts or shires, and chose from amongst themselves deputies or
representatives. And the Great Council contained besides,
representatives of the clergy, and of the chartered boroughs. In England
the national Council was divided into two separate houses, namely, that
of Peers, where the members sat by personal right, and that of Commons,
who were members by representation. In Scotland there was a single
house: nobles and prelates, representatives of shires, and delegates
from boroughs, all sat together, took a common share in the debates, and
all votes were of equal account. Acts were made into law, and powers
were granted for raising money, by the bills passed in Parliament, being
assented to by the sovereign. The form of assent was touching the bills
with the sceptre.
And the old Scottish statute book is replete with wise, well-considered
laws. But from the powers assumed by the nobles, each virtually claiming
absolute authority within his own domains, the administration was
woefully defective. The nobles were, moreover, often engaged in deadly
feuds against each other; perpetuating family quarrels through
generations, and at times powerful houses would coalesce against
sovereignty itself.
In the English quarrels which arose, a Scottish army would be composed
of brave and hardy fighting men, trained to arms, and devoted to their
immediate leaders. But the leaders were jealous of, and many of them
inimical to each other; so could not act in concert, and a battle under
such circumstances would be a disaster and a disgrace. A great
personality, like that of Robert the Bruce, could over-master the
discordant elements, and make his own authority paramount; but amongst
his successors there were several weak monarchs, unable to beat down
personal rancour and ambition in the council and in the camp. And one
great curse to Scotland in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth
centuries, was the comparatively large number of regencies, from the
under ages of monarchs at their accession to the throne,—thus creating
jealousy, rivalry, and partizanship amongst the more powerful nobles.
The burghs had risen in population and importance, generally clustering
round the larger religious houses. Men not connected with the land
either as proprietors or retainers, congregated together for mutual
trade and mutual protection. The sovereigns encouraged this growth, as
affording a readier means of raising revenue, and as an equipoise to the
power of the nobles; granting the towns chartered privileges, which
constituted them royal burghs. The citizens elected their municipal
Council; the chief magistrate was styled Provost, the others Bailies.
Many burghs were defended by walling, and the citizens were trained to
arms; they had to defend the burgh, and, in levies, to help the King in
his wars.
In the midland shires law and order obtained generally, but in the
Highlands and their adjacent islands, and in the frontier shires, there
was, as a rule, lawlessness and disorder. The halo of romance, largely
kindled by the genius of Sir Walter Scott, hovers round the Scottish
Highlands. The
“Land of green heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood”
bred a stalwart race of brave men, with persistent loyalty in their
hearts to their clanship, and to the hills and glens which were to them
their fatherland; but they long continued in semi-barbarism, separated
by race and language from the comparatively civilized Lowlands, with
little of national patriotism, and a great distrust of the—to them
distant—sovereignty of Holyrood. They often, as did their forefathers in
the time of the Romans, a thousand years previously, made plundering
incursions into the Lowlands; but they had continual clan-quarrels
amongst themselves, which helped to keep them in their native wilds, and
the government would foment these quarrels, and even, to their mutual
destruction, employ one clan against another. So late as the reign of
James IV. an Act of Parliament, for the better government of the
Highlands and Islands, states that for want of justices and sheriffs,
these districts had become almost savage.
And the border counties—on both sides of the hardly defined line of
demarcation—were also in an unsettled state. They, too, had their family
clanships, their hereditary feuds, their predatory raids. There was a
sort of debatable land of moor, forest, and morass, where neither
national nor forest-law was paramount. On both sides Wardens of the
marches were appointed, with a mutual understanding to prevent border-
raiding. But the Wardens themselves were generally heads of the great
neighbouring families, and they often broke their own laws, by
sheltering or encouraging offenders. Altogether the picture which we
gather from the history of Scotland in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries is not a pleasant one to dwell upon.
But there were rifts in the cloud. The first James, 1406 to 1437, has
left a noble record as a man of knightly nature, a fine poet, and a wise
ruler. When eleven years of age, he was put by his father, Robert III.,
on board of a vessel to sail to France, to save him from his uncle, the
Duke of Albany, who had caused the death by starvation of his elder
brother. The vessel was captured by the English, and the young prince
was for eighteen years a prisoner. But he was well educated, and seems
to have had great freedom of movement—even taking part in the French
wars. He married Joan Beaufort, daughter of the Earl of Somerset, and
nearly related to the royal family of England. In 1424, a ransom was
negotiated; James was set at liberty, and he and his queen were crowned
at Scone. Under him many wise laws were enacted for the proper
administration of justice, and for the fostering of home trade and
foreign commerce. His great task was in curtailing the powers assumed by
the nobles. This made him enemies, and cost him his life. Temporarily
occupying a house in Perth, a band of miscreants under Sir Robert
Graham, who had recently been punished by the King for law-breaking,
burst at night into the King’s chamber, and in his wife’s presence
savagely slew him. The Queen took wild vengeance on the murderers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Older Scottish Literature.
Perhaps in no part of Scotland was there—even in the fourteenth century—
pure Anglo-Saxon blood. The Lothians and the south-eastern shires had
been a portion of the old kingdom of Northumbria, in which, with the
Angles as a normal population, there had been large Danish settlements;
and numbers of Normans also settled therein, both before and after the
Conquest; whilst the descendants of the old Britons had peopled the
south-western shires, from the Solway to the Clyde. Thus whilst the
generally spoken language of the two countries was essentially the same,
the literature of England would be more purely Teutonic; that of
Scotland would include Celtic elements; but these elements would assert
themselves more in qualifying the style of the literature than in the
use of Celtic words.
Thus, Scottish poetry generally shows a passionate love of Nature; its
picturesque descriptions and vivid colourings reaching or bordering upon
exaggeration. Its humour is broad, and of coarsish fibre. And then the
sentiment of patriotism has ever been more pronounced in Scotland than
in England. As a rule, English Nationalism was, after the Norman
Conquest, even in the most disastrous times, safe and self-assertive. On
the other hand, Scottish Nationalism was at one period, for a time,
entirely lost; it was often in extreme danger, and was saved only by
extreme efforts,—as we might say, “by the skin of the teeth.” Can we
wonder then that fervid patriotism pervades,—becomes obtrusive even, in
Scottish literature; and that this literature almost deifies the
National heroes?
Thus, amongst the earlier efforts in Scottish poetry replete with this
glowing patriotism, we have Archbishop Barbour’s poem, _The Bruce_;
Blind Harry’s _History of Sir William Wallace_; and Andrew of Wyntoun’s
_Chronykil of Scotland_. We mentioned as a poet James I., he wrote _The
Kings Quhair_ (_i.e._, book); it is in Chaucer’s seven-line stanza, and
contains the best poetry published in Great Britain, between that of
Chaucer and the Elizabethan period. From a full heart he tells the story
of his love; a love which brightened his life, and shone true at his
death, when his queen did her best to save him from the daggers of the
conspirators. The King,—whilst a prisoner in Windsor Castle,—saw from
his window his future queen, walking in an adjacent garden.
“Cast I down mine eyes again,
Where as I saw, walking under the tower,
Full secretly, now comen here to plain.
The fairest, or the freshest younge flower
That ever I saw, methought, before that hour,
For which, sudden abate—anon astart—
The blood of all my body to my heart.
“And in my head I drew right hastily
And eftesoons I leant it out again,
And saw her walk that very womanly,
With no wight mo’, but only women twain,
Then gan I study to myself, and sayn,—
‘Ah, sweet! are ye a worldly creature,
Or heavenly thing in likeness of nature?
“‘Or, are ye god Cupidis own princess
And comin are to loose me out of hand?
Or, are ye very Nature the goddess,
That have depainted with your heavenly hand
This garden full of flowers as they stand?
What shall I think, alas! what reverence
Shall I outpour unto your excellence?’”
Another king, James Fifth of the name, was also a poet; he may be called
the originator of that satirical humour in verse which afterwards
characterized so many Scottish poets, including Robert Burns, the
greatest of them all.
[Illustration: WILLIAM DRUMMOND.]
After the union of the crowns, and the removal of the Scottish Court to
London, in 1603, the old language came to be considered a provincial
dialect. William Drummond, of Hawthornden (1585-1649), was the first
notable Scottish poet who wrote well in modern English. He was imbued
with true literary taste and feeling, and he ranks, as do subsequent
Scottish writers, amongst British authors.
The Lowland folk-speech has really changed less from the Old English
than the tongue of any other portion of the island; its glossary is very
largely a key to Chaucer and Spenser, to Barbour and Andrew Wyntoun. As
might have been expected, the folk-speech which is nearest to the
English of modern literature is that of the more remote Highlands, as of
Inverness and its surroundings. Where the old Gaelic has succumbed to
book-learned English, there was no intermediate stage of the older
tongue.