THE
SCOTTISH CAVALIER.
An Historical Romance.
BY JAMES GRANT, ESQ.,
AUTHOR OF
"THE ROMANCE OF WAR, OR THE GORDON HIGHLANDERS,"
"MEMOIRS OF KIRKALDY OF GRANGE," &C.
Dost thou admit his right,
Thus to transfer our ancient Scottish crown?
Ay, Scotland was a kingdom once,
And, by the might of God, a kingdom still shall be!
ROBERT THE BRUCE, ACT II.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,
GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1850.
Contents
I. Les Gardes Ecossais
II. The Glove
III. A Ball in the Olden Time
IV. Two Loves for One Heart
V. Beatrix Gilruth
VI. The Sedan
VII. Adventures of the Night Concluded
VIII. The Fencing Lesson
IX. The Luckenbooths
X. The White Horse Cellar
XI. The Betrothal
XII. The Defiance
XIII. The March for England
XIV. The Hawk and the Dove
XV. A Statesman of 1688
XVI. Trust and Mistrust
XVII. The Guisards
XVIII. The Revolt at Ipswich
XIX. Free Quarters
XX. The Redeemed Pledge
XXI. The Swart Rüyters
WALTER FENTON;
OR,
THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER.
CHAPTER I.
LES GARDES ECOSSAIS.
Thus shall your country's annals boast your corps,
And, glorious thought! in times and ages hence,
Some valiant chief to stimulate the more,
And urge his troops, the battle in suspense,
Shall hold your bright example to their view.
RUDDIMAUN'S MAG.
Louis, surnamed the Saint, King of France, having taken the cross,
sailed with a splendid retinue of knights, nobles, and soldiers bent
on the delivery of Jerusalem from the profanation of the Moslem; and,
landing in the East, laid siege to Damietta (in Lower Egypt), which
he triumphantly won by storm. But, after enduring innumerable
hardships and disasters by the sword, and by pestilence from the
fœtid waters of the marshy Nile and the Lake of Menzaleh, he was
overthrown in battle at Mansoura, and made captive by the Soldan.
This was about the year 1254, when Alexander III. was King of
Scotland.
In these Eastern wars, St. Louis was twice saved from death by the
valour of a small band of auxilliary Scots crusaders, commanded by
the Earls of March and Dunbar, Walter Stewart Lord of Dundonald, and
Sir David Lindsay of Glenesk. Those brave adventurers had the good
fortune to rescue the French monarch, first from the scimitars of the
followers of the King of the Arsacides, a Mahommedan despot, and
afterwards from the emissaries of the Comtesse de la Marche. Our
good King Alexander, sent ambassadors to congratulate St. Louis on
his deliverance from these double perils; and on his return from this
first crusade, the two monarchs agreed that, in remembrance of these
deeds of fidelity and valour, there should remain in France, in all
time coming, "a standing company or guard of Scotsmen recommended by
their own sovereign," and who should in future form the
garde-du-corps of the most Christian King.
Such was the origin of the bravest body-guard that Europe ever saw,
though our ancient historians are fond of dating its formation from
the days of Charlemagne and Gregory the Great of Scotland.
The Guard thus established by St. Louis marched with him to his
second crusade, in the year 1270. It was then led by the Earls of
Carrick and Athole, Sir John Stuart, Sir William Gordon, and other
brave knights, most of whom perished with Louis of a deadly
pestilence before the walls of Tunis, and under the towers of Abu
Zaccheria.
This noble band of Scottish Archers remained constantly in France,
and were the only military corps in that country, until King Charles
VII. added a few French companies to increase his Guards, still
giving the Scots their old pre-eminence and post of honour next the
royal person. Their leader was styled _Premier Capitaine_ of the
Guards, and as such took precedence of all military officers in
France. When the French sovereign was anointed, he stood beside him;
and when the ceremony was over, obtained the royal robes, with all
their embroidery and jewels, as his perquisite. When a city was to
be stormed, the Scottish Archers led the way; when it surrendered,
the keys were received by their captain from the hands of the king.
Twenty-five of them, "in testimony of their unspotted fidelity," wore
over their magnificent armour white hoquetons of a peculiar fashion,
richly laced and embossed with silver. Six of them in rotation were
ever beside the royal person--by night as well as by day--at the
reception of foreign ambassadors--in the secret debates of the
cabinet--in the rejoicings of the tournament--the revels of the
banquet--the solemnities of the church--and the glories of the
battle-field. These Scottish hearts formed a zone around the
monarchs of France; and at the close of the scene, the chosen
twenty-five had the privilege of bearing the royal remains to the
regal sepulchre of St. Denis.
It would require volumes, instead of a chapter, to recount all the
honours paid to the Scottish Guard, and the glory acquired by them in
the wars of five centuries.
Led by Alexander Earl of Buchan, Great Constable of France, they
performed good service in that great battle at Banje-en-Anjou, where
the English were completely routed; and at Verneuil, where Buchan
died sword in hand, like a brave knight, and covered with renown,--at
the same moment that Swinton, the gallant Laird of Dalswinton, slew
the boasting Clarence with one thrust of his border-spear.
In 1570 the Guard consisted of a hundred curassiers, or
hommes-des-armes, a hundred archers of the corps, and twenty-five
"keepers of the King's body,"--all Scottish gentlemen of noble
descent and coat-armour. They saved the life of the tyrant Louis XI.
at Liege, and at Pavia fought around the gallant Francis in a circle
until _four_ only were left alive; and then, but not till _then_, the
King fell into the hands of the foe. In gratitude for their
long-tried faith and unmatched valour, they were vested with "all the
honour and confidence the King of France could bestow on his nearest
and dearest friends;" and thus, in a little band of Scottish Archers
originated the fashion of standing armies, and the nucleus of the
great permanent forces of France.
"By this means," says an old Jacobite author, "our gentry were at
once taught the rules of civility and art of war; and we were
possessed of an inexhaustible stock of brave officers fit to
discipline and to command our armies at home, and ever sure to keep
up that respect, which was deservedly paid to the Scots' name and
nation abroad."
As Sir James Hepburn's regiment of Pikemen they returned to Scotland
in 1633, being sent over by Louis XIII. to attend the coronation of
Charles I. at Edinburgh. On the commencement of the great and
disastrous civil war eight years after, they loyally adhered to the
King, and were then by the Cavalier army first styled the _Royal
Scots_. On the reverse of Charles's fortune and subversion of all
order, they went back to France; and under Louis of Bourbon, Duc
d'Enghien, shared in all the dangers and glories of that campaign on
the frontiers of Flanders, so famous for ending in the utter
destruction of the Spanish host, the death of the brave Condé de
Fuentes, the fall of Thionville, Philipsburg, Mentz, Worms, and
Oppenheim, till the waters of the Rhine reflected the flash of their
armour; and there fell the veteran Hepburn with his helmet on his
brow, and the flag of St. Andrew over him.
Returning in 1678, they re-entered the Scottish army as the Earl of
Dunbarton's foot; and eight years after served against the ill-fated
Monmouth, and suffered severely, being attacked at Sedgemoor by his
cavalry in the night, their position being discerned through the
darkness by the glow of their lighted matches.
At the Union in 1707, on the incorporation of the forces as the
British establishment--and when Scottish blood and Scottish treasure
were more than ever required to further the grasping aims and useless
wars of that age--the Royals, in consequence of their high-standing
in arms and venerable antiquity, were numbered as the _First_, or
Royal Scots Regiment of Foot,--a title they have since maintained
with honour, and on a hundred fields have upborne victoriously, the
same silver cross which the brave Archers of Athole and the spearmen
of Buchan unfurled so gloriously on the plains of Anjou, and at
Verneuil, on the banks of the Aure.
Proud of themselves and of the honours their predecessors had
sustained untarnished in so many foreign battles, Dunbarton's
musqueteers felt an esprit du corps, to which at that time few other
military bands were entitled; and it was with a bosom glowing with
the highest sentiments of this description, that Walter Fenton for
the first time clasped on the silver gorget and plumed headpiece of
his junior rank, and found himself really a standard-bearer of a
regiment deemed the first in Europe, and whose boasted antiquity had
become a jocular proverb, obtaining for it the name of Pontius
Pilate's Guard.
When next he paid his devoirs at the residence of the Napiers, Lilian
fairly blushed with pleasure to see him looking so gallant and
handsome; for, to a young girl's eye, a nodding plume, a golden
scarf, and jewelled rapier, were considerable additions to an
exterior otherwise extremely prepossessing.
The paleness resulting from his confinement had quite passed away;
his olive cheek was suffused with the rich warm glow of health; while
buoyant spirits, new hopes, and high aspirations, lent a lustre to
his eye and a grace to his actions, which was not visible before,
when he felt himself to be the mere object of patronage and
dependence--the poor private gentleman with a brass-hilted whinger
and corslet of black iron.
Again and again he visited the old turretted house on the Burghmuir,
and drank deeper draughts of that intoxicating passion which, from
its hopelessness, he dared hardly acknowledge to himself. Every day
he became more and more in love, and felt that it would be impossible
(with all his awe of Lady Grisel's fardingale and cane) to keep it
long a secret from the being who inspired it.