much further north than they did in later times. The Forth was
really the boundary of England instead of the Tweed; and the Wall of
Antoninus, which extended from the Forth to the Clyde, was more nearly
the margin of the Southern Kingdom than the Cheviots. Indeed, the whole
land betwixt the Forth and the Humber was continually changing masters,
and the insecurity of the conquests of either party made it doubtful as
to where the boundaries of the two kingdoms should be set. Thus, when
David I. reigned, though then possessed of Lothian, the Scottish Crown
had but an insecure hold upon Northumberland and York. The reign of his
grandson, William the Lion, however, sufficiently settled the matter,
for after his foolish escapade at Alnwick and Carlisle in 1174, when he
was taken prisoner and carried to England and France, he was compelled
to do homage to Henry II., not only for the territories betwixt the
Humber and Tweed, but also for the whole Kingdom of Scotland; thus
establishing the unpatriotic usage of which Edward I. availed himself
afterwards in his disputes with the Claimants to the Scottish Crown.
It will thus be seen that for a considerable time Dunbar was as much
an English as a Scottish stronghold. And the indefiniteness of its
nationality made it an object of envy to both parties. So around this
ancient Keep, which stood defiantly upon the brink of the Eastern Sea,
there clustered many memories of former times, and many hopes for the
future of Scotland which could never be fulfilled. The strength of
the Castle, which rendered it almost impregnable, and the extent of
the accommodation which it afforded, ever made it a coveted point in
protracted warfare; and its possessor might easily sway the balance
of fortune and decide the fate of either Kingdom. It was, therefore,
important for the welfare of Scotland that the Castle of Dunbar should
be in the hands of a true patriot. Unfortunately this was not always
the case, and the history of the Castle alternates between treason and
fidelity to the Scottish cause.
The incident by which Cospatrick, Earl of Dunbar, came to Lothian and
was possessor of a Castle and a title has been already explained. When
King John of England, in reprisal of a Scottish Border raid, marched
into the land at the head of his army, and laid siege to the Castle
of Dunbar, he was compelled to abandon his purpose, and leave the
stronghold in the hands of its owner, Patrick, sixth Earl of Dunbar.
Unfortunately for Scotland’s welfare some of the earls were not always
faithful to Scotland. Patrick, eighth Earl, who liberated Alexander
III. by surprising Edinburgh Castle, when held by the Comyns, became
one of the Regents of Scotland after Alexander’s death. His son,
Patrick, ninth Earl, surnamed “Black Beard,” was the first to be
styled “Earl of March.” Unlike his father he swore fealty to Edward
I., and was a faithful adherent of the English interest. His wife,
Marjory Comyn, daughter of the Earl of Buchan, took up the cause of
the other party, and held the Castle of Dunbar for King John Balliol
until forced to surrender it to Edward I. in 1296, who made the Earl
two years afterwards, “King’s Lieutenant in Scotland.” Both he and his
heir were present at the Battle of Caerlaverock in 1300, when Edward’s
party won the Castle. The tenth Earl of Dunbar and March, Patrick, like
his father, was devoted to the King of England, and when Edward II. was
escaping after losing the Battle of Bannockburn, in 1314, he sheltered
the fugitive at Dunbar Castle, and procured a fishing-boat to take him
to England.
This tenth Earl was a “trimmer,” and made his peace with Robert Bruce
when he saw that Bruce was to be in the ascendant, and he was made
Scottish Governor of Berwick Castle, a post which he held till the
defeat of the Scots at Halidon Hill in 1333 forced him to surrender.
While he was away, Dunbar was brought into notice through the
persistent bravery of his wife, Agnes Randolph, daughter of the famous
Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, the comrade of Robert Bruce, and also
a grand-niece of Bruce, known in history as “Black Agnes.” The story
has been often told alike in prose histories and ballads, but will bear
repetition in connection with the Castle of Dunbar.
After the death of Robert the Bruce in 1329, Scotland fell again into
political difficulties which seemed even more dangerous than those from
which that monarch had rescued her. His son and successor, afterwards
David II., was a child of six years old, and a long minority was to
be expected. For several years the country had suffered from military
disquiet, first caused by Edward Balliol, and afterwards by Edward
III., though the latter was a brother-in-law of King David. The English
King had over-run Scotland, partly with the aid of Patrick, tenth Earl
of Dunbar, who afterwards abandoned the support of the English in 1333.
Before he returned to Dunbar Castle, the Countess, who had been left
in charge of the place, had bravely defended the Castle against the
English Army, and held it for upwards of five months, the date being
13th January 1337-8, till on 16th June 1338 the besiegers had to raise
the Siege of Dunbar. The contemporary chronicler narrates the story
thus:--
“The Castle of Dunbar, notwithstanding a heavy siege, held out
manfully, and because the Countess of Dunbar, who was the principal
guardian of the Castle, was sister of the Earl of Moray, then a
prisoner at Nottingham, the English brought him down to Dunbar in April
1338, threatening that if the Countess did not surrender the Castle,
they would put her brother to death; to which she answered, ‘If you do
this I shall be heir to the Earldom of Moray,’ for her brother had no
children. The English, however, did not wish to put the Earl to death,
and sent him back to England to be detained in custody as before.”
There is a curious incident in this siege which is not widely known.
The English attacking party was under the command of William de
Montacute, Earl of Salisbury. Finding that the methods of attack
adopted by him were not proving successful, he descended to a little
silent treachery. He had gained the ear of some of the servants in the
Castle, who, with the knowledge of the Countess, had planned to give
the Earl and a few followers admission at the great gate. Attended
by some of his most daring knights, Salisbury approached the main
entrance at midnight. As arranged, he found the drawbridge down and
the portcullis raised, so that the entrance to the place was open to
him. But one of his followers, more forward than the rest and eager
to be noticed by the leader, pressed forward even before the Earl,
and was the first to enter within the precincts. No sooner had he
passed the sacred line than the portcullis descended between him and
his companions, and the Earl with the remainder of his party had to
beat a hasty retreat ere the rising drawbridge should entrap them and
prevent their escape. Thus by one moment’s precipitation the chance
of capturing the English leader was lost, much to the chagrin of the
Countess.
The protracted siege had naturally discouraged the soldiers within
the Castle, and the provisions were growing scant when relief came
to them from an unexpected quarter. The brave Sir Alexander Ramsay
of Dalwolsey (Dalhousie), one of the foremost knights of the time
(whose sad fate is related in the notice of “Hermitage Castle” in this
volume), succeeded in breaking the blockade and carrying relief to the
well-nigh exhausted garrison. Braving the restless surge and the still
more merciless enemy, Ramsay found means of communication with the
Castle by the sea-washed caverns beneath the rock of its foundation.
Encouraged by this accession of strength, and relieved by the welcome
stores which these adventurers had brought, the Scots determined upon
breaking the siege by a vigorous sally. Selecting both the time and the
men with the profound instinct that constitutes the successful general,
Sir Alexander made a most daring raid upon the English forces, and so
discouraged them that the valiant Earl of Salisbury, a man of vast
experience in war, had at length to raise the siege, and beat a retreat
within the English Border. And thus the prophecy of Black Agnes was
fulfilled:--
“‘And do they come?’ Black Agnes cried,
‘Nor storm nor midnight stops our foes.
Well, then, the battle’s chance be tried,
The Thistle shall out-thorn the Rose!’”
Thus ended the Siege of Dunbar, and thus the hand of a feeble woman,
when nerved by patriotism and armed with chosen Scottish valour, was
sufficient to checkmate the plots and schemes which the English
politicians had laid for the overthrow of Scotland.
It is sufficiently evident from the literature of the time that the
English army expected that Dunbar would fall an easy prey into their
hands. More as a jest than as a serious engagement did they begin the
siege. There was, therefore, a little lugubrious humour in the songs
which their minstrels sang in the camp before Dunbar; and the laugh was
latterly quite against them. One of these lays, preserved by Wyntoun,
gives a glimpse of their elephantine humour:--
“Of this assiege in their hethyng
The English oysid to make karping.
‘I vow to God she makes great steer
The Scottish wenchie ploddiere.
Come I aire or I come I late,
I found Annot at the gate!’”
But when they returned to their own land, discomfitted, overthrown,
and disgraced by the power and endurance of a weak woman, and the grim
“heroes of a hundred fights,” had to confess that they had found a
superior in the Scottish heroine, well might they ponder on the text
thus tendered by a modern poet:--
“He has put down the mighty from their seat,
And has exalted them of low degree.”
During the War of Independence in Scotland, no friends had been truer
to each other in weal and woe, than Randolph, Earl of Moray, and the
valiant Sir James Douglas. As companions-in-arms they had shared
the toils of many a battlefield side by side, and though rivals for
renown, each beheld the other’s advancement without one pang of envy.
But in the course of time an estrangement arose betwixt these two
families after the demise of the leaders, and ere a hundred years had
flown the descendants of Douglas and Randolph were deadly enemies.
Doubtless this was largely owing to the rapid increase of power which
the Douglases had gained on the Border, and which the Earl of Dunbar
and March--descendants of Randolph on the female side--resented as an
encroachment on their own territory. The middle marches of the Border
were now under the control of the Douglas faction; and the Earls of
Dunbar and March were restricted to the eastern division of this part
of the country by their neighbouring compatriots as rigidly as though
they had been foreigners in the land.
The cause of the ultimate rupture betwixt these two powerful noblemen
was peculiar. The unhappy King, Robert III., whose mind lay rather
towards legislative reform than battlefields, was not competent to use
the mailed hand that the times demanded; and his brother, afterwards
Regent, Duke of Albany, made the King his unwilling supporter. In
the fulness of parental pride the King had made his son, the Duke of
Rothesay, Governor of the Kingdom, but the levity of his conduct and
the partial methods of his judgments soon estranged the nobility from
him. The deep-laid schemes of his uncle, the Duke of Albany, who
coveted the Throne, were not unknown to him, but he affected to disdain
duplicity.
The vacillating and weak-minded Robert III., wishful to obtain peace
at any price, allowed his brother, the politic Duke of Albany, to
carry out his ambitious plans. He made it known among the Scottish
nobility that the Duke of Rothesay, the heir-apparent to the Crown,
would require to be married, to maintain the succession, and the hand
of the Duke would be assigned to the highest bidder. Foremost among the
match-making nobles was George, eleventh Earl of Dunbar and March, who
had a daughter Elizabeth of marriageable age; and it was intimated to
him that if he could produce an adequate dowry his daughter might be
prospective Queen. By some means the Earl fulfilled the conditions, and
the Lady Elizabeth of Dunbar was declared to be the betrothed bride of
the Duke of Rothesay.
The Earl of Douglas, however, had also a daughter of a suitable age
for wedlock, and as his revenues vastly exceeded those of Dunbar, he
saw a brilliant opportunity before him of ennobling his family by a
connection with the Throne, and by the same stroke discomfitting his
rival. The Duke of Albany astutely saw that whichever bride was chosen
the result would be misfortune to his nephew, from the raising of one
of two powerful enemies against him. Rothesay himself seems to have
been indifferent, as he did not mean to be faithful to either bride,
so he languidly acquiesced to whatever his uncle Albany proposed, and
received the daughter of Douglas with as little regard as he would
have bestowed upon the heiress of Dunbar. But the Earl of Dunbar and
March could not bear the insult and contumely thus heaped upon him.
Retiring from the Court to his Castle of Dunbar, he summoned his
retainers around him, and prepared to open negotiations with the Court
of England. Leaving Dunbar strongly garrisoned in the care of one of
his near kinsmen, he journeyed himself to England expecting to receive
the command of a contingent to invade Scotland.
No sooner had the Earl of Douglas heard of the preparations which
the Earl of Dunbar and March had made than he assembled his own
overwhelming band of followers and, marching straight to Dunbar
Castle, invested it closely. This display of power so terrified the
faint-hearted Governor that he surrendered without striking a single
blow. This completed the power of Douglas, since he had Dunbar,
Bothwell, and Douglas Castles in his possession, which controlled
all entrance to the south of Scotland. The succession of the Earls
of Dunbar and March, thus rudely broken, was never thoroughly
re-established.
For a considerable period the Castle changed hands frequently, as one
or other of the Border Clans gained supremacy in the neighbourhood; but
its power of menacing the Capital was never forgotten. As a coveted
stand-point for any ambitious Lord or successful Laird its history was
a stormy one, though but imperfectly learned from authentic records.
Now it was in possession of the Homes; anon the Scotts won it; and
each of the more important Border Clans had this stronghold under
their control and dared their rivals. Many strange scenes were enacted
beneath the roof-tree of Dunbar, and many a deed of nameless violence,
of clamant wrong, did the now dilapidated chambers witness:--
“Beneath those battlements, within those walls
Power dwelt amid her passions; in proud state
Each robber chief upheld his armed halls,
Doing his evil will, nor less elate
Than mightier heroes of a longer date.
What want these outlaws; conquerors should have
But History’s purchased page to call them great?
A wider space, an ornamented grave?
Their hopes were not less warm; their works were full as brave.”
The most interesting episodes in the history of Dunbar Castle are those
which relate to the connection of Mary, Queen of Scots, with this
desolate ruin. After the ruthless murderers had perpetrated the outrage
which they had long meditated, the very success of their plot found
them unprepared for the results which followed. Their suspicion of the
weak and vacillating Darnley on the one hand, and their well-grounded
doubts of the faithfulness of the arch-traitor and hypocrite, Moray,
perplexed the leaders of the assassination. The high-spirited manner in
which the Queen denounced their brutality led some of them to think
that the safest way for them would be to fulfil the threat with which
Ruthven quieted her, and “cut her into collops and throw her over the
wall”; the difficulty in which they were placed was a serious one.
With Darnley at their head, and in the presence of the Queen, they had
committed “murder most foul and most unnatural” by the assassination
of Rizzio; and the question arose as to what should be done with the
Sovereign who was now in their hands.
The escape of the Queen with Darnley from Holyrood has been often
narrated. The fugitives directed their way to Dunbar Castle. Her
residence there, though short, was sufficient to strike terror into the
hearts of the conspirators against the Throne; and when she returned a
few days afterwards to Musselburgh, it was to resume the power of which
she had been so nearly deprived. Very different was her next visit to
this sea-beaten tower.
However unworthy an object Darnley may have been, it is absolutely
certain that Queen Mary loved him faithfully. His reckless conduct
during the scene of the murder of Rizzio was easily pardoned by his
affectionate wife upon the first intimation which she received of his
penitence and contrition; and thus the few days they spent at Dunbar
Castle formed a brief but pleasant interlude in her chequered life. But
soon afterwards the murder of Darnley changed the prospect of her whole
future career, and all the years she had yet to survive were shrouded
in darkness and despair:--
“White as a white sail on a dusky sea
When half the horizon’s crowded, and half free,
Fluttering between the dun wave and the sky
Is hope’s last gleam in man’s extremity.
Her anchor parts! but still her snowy sail
Attracts our eye amidst the rudest gale;
Though every wave she climbs divides us more,
The heart still follows from the loneliest shore.”
A new actor now appears on the scene. The Earl of Bothwell, Lord High
Admiral of Scotland, Sheriff of Haddington, and Captain of Dunbar
Castle, had made himself extremely busy in political affairs. His
bold appearance and invincible conduct quailed all his opponents, and
carried terror to the hearts of the conspirators, who, with him, had
brought about the murder of Darnley, and whom he swayed as he wished.
Queen Mary had visited her infant son at Stirling Castle, and on the
morning of 24th April 1567 she left Linlithgow Palace for Holyrood,
with a small retinue; and Bothwell, as High Sheriff of East Lothian,
had put himself at the head of a thousand armed followers, and
intercepted the Queen at Foulbriggs (now Fountainbridge), and carried
her off forcibly to his Castle of Dunbar, and, clasping the arm of
the fair Queen of Scots with his own rude mailed gauntlet, he led his
dejected captive within its walls. Picture the misery of the poor Queen
at this juncture: her husband murdered by the agency of her captor,
her son secluded from her in a distant fortress, and her own person in
the power of a reckless and unprincipled wretch, whose lawless passions
impelled him to unrestrained iniquity. The dark story of her sojourn
at Dunbar if fully known would throw an entirely new light upon a very
dubious episode, which has been interpreted to her discredit, without
proof, by her antagonists.
As the Queen in her melancholy turret-chamber at Dunbar gazed
anxiously, hopelessly, over the foam-besprent waters of the North Sea,
the memory of her own lovely canzonet might come into her mind, and
recall the pleasures of by-past times, the milder woes of her early
life:--
“The voice of my sad song
With mournful sweetness guides
My piercing eye along
The tract that death divides;
’Mid sharp and bitter sighs
My youth’s bright morning dies.
Can greater woes employ
The scourge of ruthless Fate?
Can any hope, when joy
Forsakes my high estate?
My age and heart behold
The shroud their love enfold.
O’er my life’s early spring,
And o’er its opening bloom,
My deadly sorrows fling
The darkness of the tomb;
My star of hope is set
In yearning and regret.”
And as she heard the step of her hateful captor approaching her chamber
would not her mind dwell upon those gentle and loving words which her
murdered spouse had addressed to her in the full hey-day of youth and
love?
“The turtle for her mate
More dule may not endure
Than I do for her sake
Who has mine heart in cure,
My heart, which shall be sure
With service to the deed
Unto that lady pure,
The wale of woman heid.
Yet no mirth till we meet
Shall cause me be content!
But still my heart lament
In sorrowful silence sore
Till that time she’s present,
Farewell, I say no more!”
Quod _King Henry Stuart_.
The gay King Henry’s farewell had been realised, and the Queen had
to endure the insolence and the lawlessness of his cruel murderer.
The Bride of France, the Queen of Scotland, was now the leman of an
unprincipled Border Chief, whose meed was the gallows, had each man his
due.
Ten days after her solitary confinement in Dunbar Castle, the Queen
was bidden to accompany her captor (now raised to the rank of Duke of
Orkney) to Edinburgh. She expected to be taken to Holyrood, but instead
she was conveyed to Edinburgh Castle. Bothwell still thought that
he was acting as a freeman, but he was really playing into the hands
of the Associate Lords. He stealthily carried the Queen to Borthwick
Castle, but he was soon followed by the Regent Moray’s troops, who
invested the place, but had not artillery to besiege it. He escaped
by a secret passage, leaving the Queen to the mercy of the soldiers.
She donned the costume of a cavalier, mounted a horse, and was making
her way towards Edinburgh Castle, when her captor appeared, seized her
reins, and led her once more to Dunbar Castle.
Queen Mary’s association with this stronghold has been fully explained.
It only now remains to say that it was at Dunbar where Bothwell
devised the Battle of Carberry Hill which proved so fatal to the
hapless Queen. The Regent’s troops overcame Bothwell’s scanty force,
and Mary was captured, conveyed a prisoner to Edinburgh, and thence
to incarceration in Loch Leven Castle. The Regent Moray, in December
1567, obtained an Act of Parliament directing the demolition of Dunbar
Castle and the Fort on Inchkeith, which, however, was not immediately
put in execution. Not until the army of Moray returned victoriously
from Langside, in May 1568, did he set himself deliberately to destroy
Dunbar Castle, as being a fitting emblem of his triumph over the Queen.
And now the site of this ancient fortress is left desolate and
unlovely. The few stones which mark the spot where once it reared
its head proudly are moss-covered and time-worn, and but for the
interest that clings about them because of their eventful history,
they might readily be passed unnoticed by the traveller. Yet memory
and imagination alike conspire to recall and vivify the departed forms
which once lived in joy and sorrow, in hope and despair, within these
ruined walls:--
“Nae licht is schinand in the lodge, and nae porter keeps the door;
Nae warder strides, wi’ lustie spear, that dreirie lodge before;
Nae harp is heard inurth the ha’, and nae sang frae lady brave;
But all is quiet as Eremit’s howff, and stilliche as the grave.”
The ruins of Dunbar Castle belong by heritage to the Earl of Home, as
representing the Douglas family, to whom the structure belonged in
early days.
XX
INVERARAY CASTLE
The Highland Clans whose territories bordered upon the Lowlands
occupied a position much more favourable for the spread of civilization
amongst themselves than did the more northern septs. For, apart from
the fact that the country wherein their lot was cast afforded more
opportunity for the advance of progress by means of agriculture, the
very proximity of a race at once so peaceful and industrious as the
Lowland Scottish race would exercise a powerful influence upon them.