THE BATTLE OF SAUCHIEBURN.
"The king has come to marshal us, all in his armour drest;
And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest."
MACAULAY.
The hostile lines were drawing nearer and more near; the shouts of
the wild clansmen of Galloway mingling with the slogans of the
Merse-men, who shouted "A Home! a Home!" were borne on the wind
across the fertile fields that lay between the approaching columns.
A loud report pealed upon the stillness of the sky. It was the Great
Lion, a ball from which made a gap in the ranks of the foe; others
followed from a green knoll on which the royal culveriniers had
posted themselves, but slowly and laboriously, for the gunners of the
fifteenth century were somewhat less expert than those of our own
day. James gazed fixedly and anxiously at the insurgent bands. He
was looking for the prince, his eldest son.
"No victory can come to a heart filled with dark forebodings such as
mine," said he to Montrose.
The Duke's reply was lost in the hollow of his helmet.
"No doubt young Rothesay is surrounded by a flattering crowd, all
anxious to hail him as _James IV_."
"Ah, say not so, sire," said the faithful old peer, with a sigh; "yet
such, alas, is perhaps the fate of kings."
"The fate of kings! thou thinkest so?--to see their own flesh and
blood rise in rebellion up against them," replied James,
incoherently; "yet is there not an old proverb--a prophecy--which
says--what said it?"
Montrose did not reply.
"What said it?" repeated James, impatiently.
"That in Scotland _this year a lion shall be slain by its whelps_."
The king grew pale as death, for at that moment the wind blew out the
banner of the third division of the insurgents, and above their long
lines of shining helmets he recognised his own imperial flag, with
the red lion rampant in its golden field.
"If I this day am slain, and the boy, my son, made king," said he,
huskily, "Scotland--Scotland--what will become of her? Lord of St.
John, doth not the scripture say, 'woe unto the land whose monarch is
a child'? and my simple-hearted Rothesay is but little more in years."
At that moment a number of arrows and caliver-shots whistled past
them, and the battle began in earnest, just as the distant bell of
St. Ninian's Church tolled twelve.
The scene of this sanguinary encounter was the tract of land now
known as Little Canglar, upon the east side of a brook called the
Sauchieburn, about two miles from Stirling. A number of
weeping-willows--called in Scotland sauch-trees--drooped over the
water, and gave a name to the place, as they did to Sir James Shaw's
barony. The birds were carolling aloft in the blue welkin; the air
was pure, the sunshine bright and warm; the fragrance of the flowers
and bearded grass was wafted on the soft summer wind; the mavis sang
among the pale green sauches, and the cushat dove sent up its cry
from the Torwood's shady oaks. Grey Stirling, the wooded brow of
Craig-forth and the Ochil peaks, rose on the north, all mellowed in
the summer mist; all nature looked beautiful and smiling; but herd
and hirsel fled as the brass cannon opened on the adverse lines, and
the shout and shock of the furious onset made the poor shepherd who
stood afar off on the lone hill-side, hold his breath and bend his
head in prayer--for when Scot met Scot, right well he knew how deadly
and how deep would be the sacrilegious slaughter!
The king's vanguard, which was of course composed of his own clan,
the gallant Stewarts and other Highlanders, armed with swords, long
daggers, bows, and axes, led by John Stewart, Earl of Athole,--the
conqueror of the Lord of the Isles--rushed upon the insurgents with a
loud yell, such as can only rise from a Celtic throat. This attack
was well supported by the king's left wing, composed of five thousand
Perthshire spearmen, led by Lord Ruthven.
The Mersemen met them with their levelled lances--those pikes so
terrible in warlike annals, "six Scottish ells in length," and an
awful conflict took place; while the shouts of "_A Home, a Home!_" on
one side, and the shrill cathghairn of the Athole Stewarts, were
often turned into the shriek of agony or the groan of death, as the
lance was thrust through the Highland lurich, or the claymore found a
passage through the Lowland jack; while weapons broke and throats
were grasped and daggers driven through plate and mail, through plaid
and buff, or the swaying axe split helmets of tempered steel and
targets of tough bull's-hide like withered nutshells.
"The first charge was valiantly given," says Drummond of Hawthornden,
"launce meeting with launce; so the vanguard of the lords began to
yield ground, and was strongly repulsed."
The men of West Lothian shot showers of arrows, to which the Highland
archers replied; and for a few minutes the air was darkened by the
passing flights, while men fell fast on both hands, and pressing on,
pikemen and archers came closing up on every side with axe and sword,
till a deadly and disastrous _mêlée_ began between the royalists and
insurgents, who rushed upon each other like two torrents broken loose.
On one side was the poor bewildered king, driven forward with this
armed tide, confused, sorrowful, and irresolute, with the royal
standard borne over his head by the Constable of Dundee; on the other
was the heir of Scotland, agitated also by painful irresolution, by
remorse and shame, and also having the royal standard above him, but
surrounded by a brilliant band of nobles, all shining in polished
steel, gold, plumage, and embroidery; and towards that quarter of the
enemy's line, young Ramsay, Lord of Bothwell, at the head of the
royal guard, made incredible exertions to hew a passage for the
purpose of ridding the king, with his own hand, of as many high-born
traitors as possible.
James sat motionless on his magnificent grey charger, with this
forest of lances and sea of helmets flashing round him; and not one
blow did he strike, but kept his eyes fixed with a species of despair
on the banner of his son.
Conspicuous among the press of rebel lords and vassals towered the
gigantic Earl of Angus, mounted on a powerful Clydesdale horse, and
clad in fluted mail, his vizor up, and a profusion of beautiful
feathers streaming from his helmet almost to the crupper of his
steed. Aloft his mailed hand brandished, with deadly execution, a
sword which for length and strength few men could wield, and he sent
his voice before him like a trumpet; thus, it needed not the scarlet
heart on his golden surcoat to proclaim the terrible Angus--the
representative of his lord and chief, the captive Earl of Douglas.
By one blow he clove the Earl of Gleacairn through casque and gorget
to the breast, and still pressing forward--
"On, on, my wild men of Galloway!" he cried; "a Douglas! a Douglas!
on, on, for I have sworn to ride through this rabble rout _red wat
shod and mair_!" (_i.e._, above the feet in blood).
"See ye the Lord Angus, with his helmet open?" cried Sir David
Falconer to a Highland bowman; "shoot, my brave Celt, with a will!"
The Gaël--a MacRobert of Struan--shot an arrow, which glanced off the
helmet of Angus.
"Shoot again," exclaimed Falconer; "'sdeath, fellow, wert thou a
king's archer, I would hang thee in thine own bowstring for such a
glee'd shot."
Again the Atholeman shot, and slew the standard-fearer of Angus,
instead of his lord.
Undaunted by the terrible aspect of this potent and herculean lord,
many knights and gentlemen of the royal army pressed over the crowd
of shrieking men and falling horses--over all the wild _dëbris_ of a
hand-to-hand combat to reach him; but the most successful was Itamsay
of Balmain, captain of the guard, and recently created Lord Bothwell.
Though young, slight, and athletic, he rushed upon the formidable
Angus, and intent only on killing him, rained his blows thick and
fast upon the coat of fluted armour, from which the sparks of fire
were driven by every stroke.
"False fool and plebeian villain!" said the disdainful Angus,
parrying the blows skilfully with his long Banffshire blade;
"methinks ye seem better used to the porridge spurtle than the
knightly sword--but die, fellow, die! 'tis the hand of an earl that
slays thee," he cried, as his long weapon found entrance under the
left pass-guard of Bothwell's armour, and pierced him to the heart.
With a wild cry he fell into the seething mass of death and life
below. "Next time you meet me in Stirling streets, false loon, you
will not pass me unveiled, I wot," added Angus, as he pressed on,
cleaving helmets like pippins, and shredding away the tough
ash-spears like reeds by a winter brook.
"My God--my God--look on me!" cried the poor king, on seeing this
terrible episode, which, more than the thousand others occurring
round him, cut him to the soul. Intent on avenging his many wrongs
on this imperious rebel, he now for the first time that day drew his
sword and put spurs to his horse; but a furious rush of mounted
men-at-arms, on both sides, separated them hopelessly.
These were led by Home and Hailes, who, having recognized Falconer,
though in plain armour, by the silver falcon which adorned his
helmet, and had a knot of scarlet and yellow ribbons in its beak,
pressed on to slay him; while the wretched Borthwick, with Sir James
Shaw, Sir Patrick Gray, and Sir William Stirling of the Keir,
disdaining all such humble antagonists, reserved alike their swords
and strength for the king, whom the arch-traitor, their tool, had
already indicated by the yellow plume in his head-piece; and towards
him, and him only, they pressed surely and warily on.
Falconer, by one stroke, cut the reins of Lord Hailes' horse and so
rid himself of one enemy; by another blow he struck Lord Home's
casque from his head; yet, bareheaded and half-blinded by pride and
fury, the noble pressed on, standing high in his stirrups, and
showering blows on every side.
"A Home! a Home! By Saint Anne, fellow," cried he, "thou hadst
better been tending the sheep on yon brae side than here in knight's
armour."
"Better for you, perhaps, my Lord of Home," said Falconer, as by one
skilful thrust, full upon the tempered gorget, he shot him out of his
saddle on the heap of men below.
"_Gang warily!_" thundered a voice in his ear, and now the vengeful
sword of one whom he trembled to encounter--old Lord Drummond--was
flourished above him.
Covering himself, parrying thrusts and warding blows, poor Falconer
sought only to escape from an antagonist whom he dared not assail,
and for whose safety he would have laid down his life--for he was the
father of Sybilla. But the fiery blood of the old noble was at
boiling heat; he had seen "this skipper's son" defeat two chiefs of
name, to whom he had promised his daughters, and a storm of feudal
pride and aristocratic hatred of the king's humble favourite was
swelling up within him, and the arquebussier would undoubtedly have
been slain, had not Drummond of Mewie, who was hewing away on foot,
with a Lochaber axe, hamstrung his horse; and as the snorting animal
sank under him, Falconer fell heavily to the earth. His armour
protected him from serious injury, but the horses of Borthwick, Shaw,
Gray, and Keir, as these worthies spurred on, trampled him down; thus
he was stunned, and became unconscious of all that passed over and
around him.
A deadly conflict, hand to hand and horse to horse, ensued around the
unhappy king, as these four infernal spirits, followed by a thousand
others, all superbly mounted and accoutred, left the Duke of Rothesay
far in the rear; and though archers and pikemen, troopers and
knights, nobles and burgesses, pressed on with straining eyes and
noisy tongues, with swords flashing and uplifted, to kill, to
capture, or to overbear the most hapless monarch, save one, that ever
sat upon the Scottish throne, the four ruffians were ever the nearest
to him, but failed to reach him; for old Montrose, Lindesay, and all
the loyalists fought nobly in a circle round the yellow plume; and
there fell by James's side the Lord Erskine, who was slain by a
Drummond; Sir Thomas Semple of Eliotstoun, who was pierced through
the neart by a Border spear; William Lord Ruthven, the heritable
sheriff of Perth; the Laird of Innes; Alexander Scott, director of
the chancery, whose head was carried off by a cannon-ball, and many
more gentlemen, with their friends and followers. The royal standard
was beaten down and its bearer unhorsed; the cannon--the Great
Lion--and all the ensigns were taken, and when the sun of that long
summer flay was sinking behind the Grampians, and the shadows of the
Torwood were deepening on the plain, the king's troops, overborne by
numbers, after a long and gallant conflict, gave way, and a total and
irreparable rout ensued.
"God help your majesty," said the young Lord Lindesay, as, pale,
excited, without a helmet, and with his face streaked by blood, he
took the king's horse by the bridle; "the day is lost, yet all is not
lost with it while your sacred life is safe. No horse in the field
can overtake this grey I gave you. Ride--ride north, and
swiftly--the admiral's boats await you at the Craigward--farewell!"
"Ay, farewell, Lindesay--a long farewell to Scotland and to thee--for
France or Holland now must be my home."
Thus urged, and knowing that alone and unattended he might escape
more easily and unnoticed, than if followed by a train, James turned
his grey horse's head towards the north, and gladly left behind that
bloody and corpse-encumbered plain.
Thousands of arrows, with their feathers uppermost, planted all the
turf around him; here the earth was torn by hoofs, and there it was
furrowed up by cannon-shot. Men and horses, dead or wounded, or
writhing and dying, lay singly or in piles and heaps together, among
a vast _débris_ of broken helmets, torn standards, and bloody
pennons, splintered spears, swords, scarfs, and bucklers, near the
Sauchieburn, which yet gurgled placidly along under its pale green
willows, as the King leaped his fiery and unwearied horse over it,
and with a breaking heart rode towards the banks of the Forth, while
night and sorrow descended together on that disastrous field. On, on
he rode with a breaking heart, as he hoped, unnoticed and
unknown--but hoped in vain; for close behind, and tracking him like
blood-hounds, as history tells us, were Sir Patrick of Kyneff, Sir
James of Sauchie, Stirling of Keir, and Borthwick, the apostate monk
of Dunblane.