13. Convention of Falaise.—In the end of the year William regained his freedom by signing a treaty called the "Convention of Falaise," the hard terms of which were most humiliating, both to him and to Scotland. He was in future to hold his kingdom on the same terms of vassalage as those by which he now held Lothian, and as a token of further dependence his barons and clergy were also to do homage to the English King, who was to be put in possession of the principal strongholds. His brother David, Earl of Huntingdon, and twenty-one other barons were to remain as hostages till the strongholds were given up, and on their release each was to leave his son or next heir as a warrant of good faith. The homage was performed in the following year, when William met Henry at York; and the King of Scots, with his earls, barons, free-tenants, and clergy, became the liegemen of the King of England in St. Peter's Minster. The clergy swore to lay the kingdom under an interdict, and the laity to hold by their English over-lord, should William prove unfaithful to him. This treaty remained in force till the death of Henry in 1189, when Richard of England, who was in want of money for his crusade, released William, for the sum of 10,000 marks, from these extorted obligations and restored the strongholds, though he refused to give up to him the coveted earldom.
14. Homage at Lincoln.—When John succeeded his brother on the throne of England, William did such homage to him as the King of Scots had been wont to render to the King of England before the treaty of Falaise. He met John at Lincoln, whither he was escorted by a brilliant retinue of English barons. But there was no kindly feeling between the two Kings. John tried to build a castle at Tweedmouth in order to spoil the trade of Berwick, the largest trading city in Scotland, but the Scots drove away the builders and levelled the castle, and for some time both Kings kept threatening armies on the Border.
15. Independence of the Church.—At a great Council held at Northampton in 1176, the Archbishop of York claimed Scotland as a part of his province, and called on the Scottish clergy to acknowledge their dependence. They protested and appealed to the Pope, who forbade the Archbishop to press his claim. Clement III. in 1188 confirmed their claim of independence, on the ground that the Church of Scotland was in immediate dependence on the Holy See.
16. Internal Troubles.—During William's captivity, Galloway revolted. All the King's officers were either slain or expelled, and as, after the submission at Falaise, Gilbert the chief of Galloway considered himself a vassal of England, he let the Lothians have no peace till his death in 1185. William's nephew Roland then seized Galloway, drove out his opponents, and rebuilt the Royal castles. William used his influence to induce Henry to confirm Roland in possession, and thereby gained a devoted and faithful ally. It was mainly by his aid that William was enabled to put down a formidable rising in the north.
17. Social Progress.—During this reign the free towns began to rise into notice. Their privilege of trade and right to govern themselves was recognized by a charter granted to the city of Aberdeen, in which William confirmed his burghers north of the Mount, in their right of holding their own court or "free anse," as they had done in the time of his grandfather David. Thus we see that the towns of the north of Scotland were united for mutual support a century before the rise of the great continental Hansa, which bound together by a similar league the trading cities of the Baltic. Some of the most important towns date their charters from William, and he extended the influence of civilization in the north by holding his court in such remote places as Elgin, Nairn, and Inverness. The only religious foundation of this reign was the abbey of Arbroath. It was dedicated to the newest saint in the calendar, Thomas of Canterbury. William died at Stirling in 1214, leaving one son, Alexander, who succeeded him.
18. Alexander II., 1214-1249.—Alexander's accession was the signal for one of the usual risings in Moray; but as the power of the Crown in that district was now stronger than it had been in earlier times, this rising was more easily put down than any former one had been. The great struggle between despotism and freedom had just at this time set John of England and his barons at variance. Alexander joined the barons in hopes of getting back Northumberland. He crossed the Border and received the homage of the northern barons, and the following year he joined his force to those of the confederates, and marched to Dover, where he did homage to Louis of France, who, at the invitation of the barons, had come over to take the crown. The death of John and the victory of his son, Henry the Third, at Lincoln, changed the whole state of affairs, and in 1217 Alexander did the usual homage to Henry and was invested with the Honour of Huntingdon. Four years later the bond between them was drawn closer by the marriage of Alexander to Joanna, Henry's sister. This alliance was followed by a lasting peace, though Alexander still claimed Northumberland, and Henry upheld the right of the Archbishop of York to supremacy over the Scottish Church. In a council held at York in 1237, Alexander agreed to compound his claim to the earldom for a grant of the lands of Penrith and Tynedale, and, when Henry went to France, he left the Border under the care of the King of Scots.
19. Settling of the Border Line.—In 1222 an attempt was made to lay down a definite boundary between the two countries. Six commissioners on either side were appointed, and though the exact course of the line was disputed, from that time it continued pretty much what it is now, though a wide tract on either side was claimed alternately by both nations and belonged in reality to neither.
20. State of the North.—A disturbance which happened during this reign shows us something of the lawless state of the northern part of the kingdom. Adam, bishop of Caithness, tried to enforce the payment of tithes in his diocese, but his people came together to consider the best way of resisting this exaction. While they were thus holding council, it is said that a voice cried out, "Short rede good rede; slay we the bishop." On this advice they acted, for without more waste of words they attacked the bishop, and burned him and his house to ashes. Shortly before this a former bishop of Caithness had been seized and had his tongue cut out by the Earl of Orkney. Alexander died on an expedition to the Western Isles, at Kerrara, a small islet off the coast of Argyle. By his second wife, Mary of Coucy, he left a son, who succeeded him.
21. Alexander III., 1249-1266.—Alexander, a child of eight years, was crowned with great pomp at Scone, the ancient crowning place, where the famous stone of Destiny was kept. The tradition was that no one who had not been enthroned on this stone was lawful King of Scots. The most striking part of the coronation ceremony was the appearance of a Sennachy or Celtic bard, who greeted Alexander as King by virtue of his descent from the ancient Celtic Kings, and recited the whole list of the King's ancestors, carrying them back to the most remote ages. This might serve to remind him that after all his title of King came solely from those very Celts whom his more immediate forefathers had slighted and despised.
22. Alexander's Marriage and Homage to England.—On Christmas day, 1251, Alexander was married at York, to Margaret, daughter of Henry the Third, and at the same time he did homage for the lands he held in England, but evaded Henry's claim of homage for Scotland, pleading the necessity of consulting his advisers before giving an answer on so difficult a matter. This question was brought up again in 1278, when Alexander went to Westminster to acknowledge and to do homage to Edward the First, and he gave for answer that he did homage for his English fiefs alone and not for his kingdom. Edward asserted his right as over-lord of the kingdom, but he did not then attempt to enforce it.
23. Last Invasion of the Northmen.—In 1262 Hakon of Norway came with a great fleet to visit the Orkneys and the Western Isles, Sudereys or Southern Isles as the Northmen called them. The fleet sailed down the Western Coast, levying black mail on the islands and making divers inland raids. Among other exploits the Northmen dragged a number of their ships across the narrow neck of land that parts Loch Long from Loch Lomond, sailed down Loch Lomond, and harried the Lennox, as the fertile tract which stretches along its lower end is called. Hakon sailed up the Firth of Clyde, and an attempt was made at a peaceable agreement between him and the King, who was at first willing to give up all claim to the Hebrides, but wished to keep the Cumbraes, Bute, and Arran. But the Scots purposely delayed coming to terms, as they expected that the autumn storms would soon help them to get rid of their enemy. Nor were their hopes disappointed, for, in the beginning of October, a violent tempest rose, separated the ships of the invaders, sunk some, and stranded others. On the following day the Northmen who had landed were easily beaten, near Largs, by a Scottish army hastily got together on the coast of Ayr, in 1263. Hakon died in one of the Orkneys on his way home, and his son, in 1266, agreed to give up Man and the Isles for 1,000 marks down, and the promise of 100 yearly. An amnesty was granted to the Islesmen, and it was settled that the bishopric should continue in the province of Drontheim. In 1281 the King's daughter, Margaret, married Eric, the heir to the throne of Norway. She died in 1283, leaving an infant daughter, who, a few months after, by the death of Alexander, the King's only son, became heir to the Scottish crown. Three years later, in 1286, the King himself was killed by a fall from his horse while riding by night along the coast of Fife, near Kinghorn.
24. Literature and Architecture.—No chronicles of this period, written by natives of Scotland, have come down to us. But there was one poet who was held in great repute, not only for his verses, but for his prophecies. This was Thomas Learmouth of Ercildoun, called "Thomas the Rhymer," and "True Thomas," from the general belief in the truth of his predictions. He is said to have foretold that great national calamity, the King's death, under the figure of a great storm that should blow "so stark and strang, that all Scotland sall reu efter rycht lang." Another Scotsman of note was Michael Scot, the famous wizard. He travelled much in foreign lands, and was greatly renowned in them, as in his own country, as a scholar, an astrologer, and magician. The buildings of this period were chiefly the churches and abbeys founded by Margaret and her descendants. They were all in the same style as contemporary buildings in England. There were as yet very few castles, that is fortified buildings of solid masonry, in the kingdom. The great strongholds, such as Edinburgh, Stirling, and Dunbarton, were steep rocks, made so inaccessible by nature that they needed but little strengthening from art. Dwelling-houses seem to have been generally built of wood.
25. State of the Kingdom.—The second period of the national history breaks off abruptly with the death of Alexander. It had begun with the dethronement of Donald Bane, the last Celtic King, nearly two hundred years before, and during that time the boundary of Scotland had been extended by the annexation of Argyle and of the Isles, while her two dependencies of Lothian and Galloway had been drawn more closely to her, though they still remained separate and distinct. Throughout this period the influence of England, though peaceable, had been stronger than it was ever to be again. English laws and English customs had been brought in, and had, in many cases, taken the place of the old Celtic usages. The Celtic maers had been removed to make way for the sheriffs of the Crown. But, as Scotland was not divided like England into shires, the sheriffs were not, as in England, the reeves of the already existing shires, but officers who were placed by the King over certain districts. These districts or sheriffdoms became the counties of later times. Feudalism after the Norman model, with all its burthensome exactions and oppressions, had been brought in and had taken firmer root in Scotland than it ever did in England. The native chiefs had been displaced by foreign nobles, so that a purely Norman baronage held the lands, whether peopled by a Celtic or a Saxon peasantry. In some cases the new owners founded families afterwards known under Celtic names; for, while the Celts gave their own names to the lands on which they settled, the Normans took the names of the lands conferred upon them and bore them as their own. The long peace with England, which had lasted unbroken for nearly a century, had been marked by great social progress. The large proportion of land that was now under the plough proves that during this untroubled time husbandry must have thriven, roads and bridges were many and in good repair, and the trading towns had made great advances in riches and power. Hitherto no one town had distinctly taken its place as the capital. Saint John's Town, or Perth, had, from its connexion with Scone, some claim to the first place, but the King held his court or his assize indifferently at any of the royal burghs. These burghs were of great importance in the state, and, as the burgesses of the royal burghs were all vassals holding direct from the Crown, they acted in some sort as a check on the growing power of the nobles. The burghers had the right of governing themselves by their own laws, and were divided into two groups. Those north of the Scots water or Firth of Forth were bound together by a league like the great continental Hansa, and known by the same name; while those in Lothian, represented by the four principal among them—Roxburgh, Stirling, Edinburgh, and Berwick—held their "court of the four burghs," which is still represented by the "Convention of Royal Burghs" which meets once a year in Edinburgh. Nor were the Scottish towns of this period in any way behind the cities of the Continent. Berwick, the richest and the greatest, was said by a writer of the time to rival London. Inverness had a great reputation for shipbuilding. A ship which was built there called forth the envy and wonder of the French nobles of that time. But this happy state of things was brought to an end by the death of the King, and the long years of war and misery that followed went far to sweep away all traces of the high state of civilization and prosperity that had been reached by the country in this, the golden age of Scottish history.
STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE.
The Regency (1)—the Interregnum (2)—Council at Norham (3)—Edward's decision (4)—John (5)—his coronation (6)—French alliance (7)—Edward's first conquest (8)—English government (9)—Wallace's revolt (10)—surrender at Irvine (11)—battle of Stirling (12)—battle of Falkirk (13)—capture of Wallace (14)—attempted union (15)—Bruce's revolt (16)—his coronation (17)—Edward's proposed revenge (18)—Bruce's struggles (19)—battle of Bannockburn (20)—results of the victory (21)—Bruce's comrades (22)—summary (23).
1. Margaret, 1286-90. The Regency.—Within a month from Alexander's death the Estates met at Scone, and appointed six regents to govern the kingdom for Margaret, the Maiden of Norway, a child of three years old, who, on the death of her grandfather Alexander, succeeded to the throne. Three of these regents were for the old kingdom, the land north of the Scots Water, and three for Lothian with Galloway. This division seems to show that the different tenure of these provinces was still understood and acted on. The Scots of the original Celtic kingdom and the Englishmen of Lothian still kept aloof from one another. In the meantime Robert Bruce, a Norman baron whose forefathers had settled in Annandale in the twelfth century, made an attempt to seize the crown by force. He laid claim to it by right of his descent from Isabella, the second daughter of David Earl of Huntingdon, brother of William the Lion, and appealed to Edward the First of England as over-lord to support him in his supposed right. At the same time other appeals against him were made by the seven Earls of Scotland, by Fraser bishop of St. Andrews, and by the Community. Edward did not encourage Bruce, but on the contrary he agreed to the proposal of the Estates that the Lady Margaret should be married to his eldest son Edward. By the treaty of Brigham, in 1290, this agreement was accepted by the Clergy, Nobility, and Community of Scotland. This treaty provided that the rights and liberties of Scotland should remain untouched; that no native of Scotland was to be called on to do homage or to answer for any crime beyond the Border; in short, that Scotland was to keep all the rights and liberties which belong to a distinct national life. This union, if it had been carried out, would have been the best possible settlement for both kingdoms, but it was prevented by the death of the Maid of Norway on her way to Scotland, in one of the Orkneys, September 1290. Edward had himself sent a ship handsomely fitted out to fetch home the Maid.
2. Interregnum, 1290-92.—Margaret was the last of the legitimate descendants of William the Lion. The new King had to be sought among the heirs of William's brother David, Earl of Huntingdon. David had left three daughters, Margaret, Isabella, and Ada, and they being dead were represented by their nearest heirs,—Margaret by her grandson John Balliol, Isabella by her son Robert Bruce, and Ada by her son John Hastings. Besides these there were a host of smaller claimants whose pretensions were quite untenable; but there was one other who, though his claim was very shadowy, was first in power and position among the claimants. This was Florence, Count of Holland, the great-great-grandson of Ada, the daughter of David's son Henry, who was to have had Ross as her dowry. Bruce, supported by his son, by James the Steward and by other nobles, made a bond with Florence by which each pledged himself, in case he got the kingdom, to give the other a third of it. Edward, as over-lord, was appealed to to settle the matter, as it was feared by the regents that Robert Bruce would seize the crown by force, and all the competitors seem to have acknowledged Edward's right of superiority.
3. Council at Norham.—Edward accordingly summoned his barons, amongst whom most of the claimants could be reckoned, to meet him in a council at Norham, on the northern side of the Tweed, in June 1291, to decide this important case. The real contest lay between Bruce and Balliol. Bruce, Balliol, and indeed nearly all the claimants, were Norman barons holding lands of Edward. The family of Bruce came originally from the Côtentin and had been settled in Yorkshire by William the Conqueror, towards the end of his reign. David, who had granted to them the great tract of Annandale, had also granted to the Balliols a manor in Berwick. Bruce's plea was that, though he was the child of a younger sister, still his right was better than that of Balliol, as he was one degree nearer their common forefather, and he brought forward many precedents to prove that in such a case nearness in degree was to be preferred to seniority.
4. Edward's Decision.—Edward decided with perfect justice, according to the ideas of modern law, that Balliol, as the grandson of the eldest daughter, had the best right to the throne. In early times in Scotland no one would have thought of doubting Bruce's claim as next in degree. As Edward refused to divide the dominions among the heirs of the three daughters, it is clear that he looked on Scotland as a dependent kingdom, and not as an ordinary fief, which would have been shared among the three rivals. Judgment was given at Berwick, November 1292, eighteen months after the first meeting of the council. During this time the government had been nominally in the hands of the guardians of the kingdom; but Edward had the strongholds, twenty-three in number, in his own hands, and seems to have looked upon the two countries as really united. At the end of the suit he gave up the strongholds, and by so doing showed that he meant to act fairly.
5. John, 1292-96. Policy of Edward.—The great scheme of Edward's life was to unite Britain under one government, of which he himself was to be the head. He had already added to England the dependent principality of Wales. Hitherto his actions towards Scotland had been perfectly fair and upright. In placing John Balliol, the rightful heir, on the throne, he was doing no more than had been done by the King of England, acting as over-lord, in the cases of Malcolm Canmore and Eadgar: but his way of placing him there was not strictly just; the conditions which he required were such as he had no right to exact, nor John to accept. He made him do homage for his kingdom as though it had been an English fief. Now, though this was true as far as concerned Lothian, and partly true as concerned Strathclyde, as concerned Scotland it was untrue. Although Scotland had, since 924, been in some degree subject to the King of England, this dependence was no more than was implied by the "commendation," the very natural relation of the weaker to the stronger. But it must be remembered that three centuries had passed since that first commendation, and in that time the original simplicity of the feudal tenure had been altogether changed and in great measure forgotten. Edward looked on the three parts of Scotland as fiefs, and therefore subject to the same burthens as his other fiefs; the Scots knew that they were not thus subject, and they therefore argued that their kingdom was in no way dependent on England: thus both parties were partly right and partly wrong. Even the amount of dependence implied in the original commendation had, in the last reign, been refused by the Scottish King, and had not been insisted on by the English one. But John Balliol was weak and foolish, while Edward was wise, strong, and determined to rule the whole country indirectly through his submissive vassal.
6. Coronation of John.—John was duly crowned and enthroned on the Stone of Destiny, after which he renewed his homage to Edward, in 1292. He then summoned the Estates at Scone. This was the first meeting of the Estates which was called a parliament. John was not popular with his subjects, who looked on him as a tool in the hands of Edward. Before many months had passed Roger Bartholomew, a burgess of Berwick, being dissatisfied with a decision given against him in Scotland, appealed to Edward, who named a council at Newcastle to hear the case. This was a direct violation of the treaty of Brigham, and Edward obliged John to sign a discharge and renunciation of this treaty and of any other document then in existence which might call in question his superiority. Another appeal was made a few months afterwards against the decision of the Estates by a Scot of the old kingdom, Macduff, the grand-uncle of the Earl of Fife, and this was followed by appeals respecting the lands of the houses of Bruce and Douglas. John was summoned to appear before the Parliament of England, was voted a contumacious vassal, and commanded to give up the three principal strongholds of his kingdom into the hands of his over-lord till he should give satisfaction.
7. French Alliance.—In 1294 war broke out between France and England, and John, with the nobles and commons of his kingdom, entered into an alliance for mutual defence with Eric of Norway and Philip of France against Edward. This was the beginning of the foreign policy maintained in Scotland for several centuries, until the Reformation, when religious sympathy got the better of national hatred, and Roman Catholic France became more dreaded than Protestant England. In compliance with this treaty a Scottish army crossed the Border and swept and wasted the northern counties.
8. Edward's first Conquest.—Edward's dealings with Scotland now became those of a conqueror instead of a protector. The Scots had, without gainsaying, acknowledged his supremacy. It was the appeal of Scottish subjects which had tempted him to extend the incidents of that supremacy beyond legal limits, and now it was the Scots who began the war, and thus gave Edward the excuse, for which he was waiting, for conquering their country. He at once marched northwards with a great army, and besieged and took Berwick, a large and wealthy trading town. Provoked by the resistance and insults of the citizens, the King wreaked a fearful vengeance on them, and Berwick was reduced to the rank of a common market-town. While he was at Berwick, John's renunciation of fealty was sent to him by the party of independence, who were keeping their King in custody lest he should repent and submit. When Edward had secured Berwick, he marched to Dunbar, took the castle, and then went on to Edinburgh. He there took up his quarters in Holyrood, laid siege to the castle, took it, seized the crown jewels, and then passed on to Perth, taking possession of Stirling on the way. To crush out all idea of an independent kingdom, and to let the people see that they were conquered, he carried off from Scone the Stone of Destiny, with which the fate of the Scottish monarchy was supposed to be mystically joined. This stone was removed to Westminster, and was placed under the seat of the coronation-chair. He also took with him the Holy Rood of Queen Margaret, and obliged all the nobles who submitted to him to swear allegiance on this much valued relic. Edward did not go further north than Elgin, and he returned to Berwick in 1296, having marched all through Scotland in twenty-one weeks. All the nobles and prelates did personal homage to him. John submitted himself to Edward's pleasure, and was degraded and dispossessed. He was then sent as a prisoner to England, was afterwards made over to the keeping of the Bishop of Vicenza, the Pope's representative, and at last he retired to his own estates in Picardy, where he died in 1315. Edward treated his kingdom as a fief forfeited by the treason of the vassal who held it. This notion of the thirteenth century, that the fief was forfeited by treason, would not have occurred to anyone in the tenth century, when probably John would only have been deposed, and some one else set up in his stead. The seizure of Normandy from John of England by Philip of France was a case of the same kind, and quite as unprecedented.
9. English Government.—Edward at once took measures for joining Scotland on as an integral part of the English kingdom. He took care that the strongholds should be commanded and garrisoned by persons without any Scottish connexion. He appointed John, Earl of Warrenne and Surrey, Guardian, Hugh of Cressingham, Treasurer, and Ormsby, Justiciar of the kingdom; sent them forms of writs to be used in the re-granting of lands; took measures for the establishment of Courts of Chancery and Exchequer at Berwick, and summoned a council of merchants to consider the best measures for the future conduct of the trade and commerce of the country. Cressingham was enjoined to raise all the money he could, for the maintenance of internal peace and order, and to put down the wicked rebels, homicides, and disturbers of the peace, who swarmed all over the land.
10. Wallace's Revolt.—The Celts in the North looked on this change in the government with apathy. To them it probably made little difference who sat on the Scottish throne, and Edward had not entered their district. The Norman nobles quietly agreed to it, for they were afraid of losing their estates in England. But it roused a spirit of defiance and opposition where resistance was least to be looked for, among the Lowlanders. They were the descendants of the earliest Teutonic settlers, and had remained more purely English in blood and speech than their kinsfolk on the southern side of the Border. This latent feeling of discontent gradually ripened into rebellion, and the standard of revolt was raised by William Wallace, a native of Clydesdale, who, unlike most of his countrymen, had not sworn allegiance to Edward. He surprised and cut to pieces the English garrison at Lanark, and slew William Haselrig, the newly appointed sheriff of Ayr. This outbreak was followed by similar attacks on detached bodies of the troops in occupation. His little band of followers gradually attracted more, and at length they surprised the Justiciar Ormsby, while holding a court at Scone, and, though he escaped out of their hands, they secured both prisoners and booty. Anthony Beck, Bishop of Durham, was next attacked in Glasgow, and forced to flee. After these successes Wallace was joined by William of Douglas, a renowned soldier, and by Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, grandson of the original claimant of the crown.
11. Surrender at Irvine.—But there was a want of system and of unity of purpose in the nation, and this noble effort on the part of the people was not seconded by the nobles. A large army under Henry, Lord Percy, was sent by Edward to put down the rising; those of the nobles who had joined the popular movement deserted it, and renewed their allegiance to Edward at Irvine, July 1297. But when Edward, who believed the revolt to be completely crushed, was absent in Flanders, Wallace mustered the people of the Lowlands north of the Tay and made himself master of the strongholds in that district.
12. Battle of Stirling.—The English army was now hastening northward under Cressingham and Warrenne, Earl of Surrey. Wallace resolved to give them battle on the Carse of Stirling, a level plain, across which the river Forth winds in and out among the meadows like the links of a silver chain. Wallace showed his skill as a general by the choice of the ground on which he posted his men. He drew them up within one of the links of the river, which swept round in front between them and the English, while a steep rocky hill, called the Abbey Craig, rose right behind them and protected the rear. The English had to cross the river by a narrow bridge. Wallace waited till half of them were over, and then attacked them. Taken thus at a disadvantage, they were easily routed. The panic spread to those on the opposite bank, who fled in disorder. In this action, called the Battle of Stirling, which was fought September 11, 1297, Cressingham was slain, and Surrey was forced to retreat to Berwick. After this victory the Scots recovered the strongholds south of the Forth, and Wallace acted as Guardian of the kingdom in the name of King John, and with the consent of the commons. Unhappily the Scots were not content with driving out the invaders, but carried the war over the Border, and wasted the northern counties of England with all the fierceness and cruelty of brigands.
13. Battle of Falkirk.—Edward returned from Flanders and raised a large army for the subjection of Scotland, promising pardon to all vagrants and malefactors who would enlist in it. The King himself led the army. The Scots wasted the country and retreated before him through the Lothians; and Wallace, who knew well the weakness of his own force, tried to avoid a battle till the great army of Edward should be exhausted from want of food. But tidings were brought to Edward that Wallace was near Falkirk, and he marched northward in haste and forced his enemy to give battle. At Stirling Wallace had won the day by his happy choice of the ground; he now showed still greater skill by the way in which he drew up his little army. It was made up for the most part of footmen, who at that time were held of no account as soldiers. The genius of Wallace found out how they might be made even more formidable than the mounted men-at-arms, in whom at that time it was supposed that the strength of an army lay. He drew them up in circular masses; the spearmen without and the bowmen within. The spearmen with lances fixed knelt down in ranks, so that the archers within could shoot over their heads. When his men were thus placed, Wallace said to them, "I have brought ye to the ring—hop gif ye can;" that is, show how well you can fight. But, though they fought well and held their ground bravely, and the English horse were driven back by the spear-points, the Scots were at last beaten down by force of numbers, and the English won the day, 1298. After this victory Edward returned to Carlisle, and Wallace resigned the Guardianship. Edward held the country south of the Forth, but the northern Lowlands seem to have maintained their independence until the spring of 1303, when Edward marched north at the head of a great army and again subdued the whole country. He made Dunfermline, the favourite seat of the Scottish court, his head-quarters. Stirling Castle alone, under Olifant the valiant governor, held out for three months, but when it was taken the lives of the garrison were spared. All the leaders in the late rising were left unharmed in life, liberty, or estate, with the exception of William Wallace. He was required to submit unconditionally to the King's grace.
14. Capture of Wallace.—Wallace had been on the Continent ever since the battle of Falkirk. He now came back and was betrayed by his servant Jack Short to Sir John Menteith, governor for Edward in Dunbarton Castle, and was sent by him to London. He was there tried, by a special commission, for treason and rebellion against Edward. He pleaded in his own defence that he had never sworn fealty to Edward. In spite of this he was found guilty, condemned to death, and hanged, drawn, and quartered according to the barbarous practice which was then coming into use in England. His head was stuck up on London Bridge, and the four parts of his body were sent to Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling, and Perth, by way of frightening the people from such attempts in future.
15. Attempted Union.—Edward then set to work to complete the union of the two kingdoms. In the meantime Scotland was to be governed by a Lieutenant aided by a council of barons and churchmen. It was to be represented in the English parliament by ten deputies,—four churchmen, four barons, and two members of the commons, one for the country north of the Firths, one for the south. These members attended one parliament at Westminster, and an ordinance was issued for the government of Scotland. John of Bretayne was named Lieutenant for the King; justices and sheriffs were appointed; the strongholds were put under governors for the King, and an inquiry was ordered into the state of the laws in order to take measures for their amendment. Edward's policy in all this was to win favour with the people and the members of the council, although many of them, such as Bruce and Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow, had taken part in the last rising. The King's peace was now offered to all rebels who would profit by it. But the great difficulty in dealing with the Scots was that they never knew when they were conquered, and, just when Edward hoped that his scheme for union was carried out, they rose in arms once more.
16. Bruce's Revolt.—The leader this time was Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale, Earl of Carrick in right of his mother, and the grandson and heir of the rival of Balliol. He had joined Wallace, but had again sworn fealty to Edward at the Convention of Irvine, and had since then received many favours from the English king. Bruce signed a bond with William Lamberton, Bishop of St. Andrews, who had also been one of Wallace's supporters. In this bond each party swore to stand by the other in all his undertakings, no matter what, and not to act without the knowledge of the other. The signing of such bonds became a prominent and distinctive feature in the after-history of Scotland. This bond became known to Edward; and Bruce, afraid of his anger, fled from London to Dumfries. There in the Church of the Grey Friars he had an interview with John Comyn of Badenoch, called the Red Comyn, who, after Balliol and his sons, was the next heir to the throne. He was the grandson of a younger sister of Balliol's mother, and the son of Balliol's sister. He had also a strong claim to the favour of the people in his alleged descent, through Donald Bane, from their ancient Celtic kings. What passed between them cannot be certainly known, as they met alone, but Bruce came out of the church saying he feared he had slain the Red Comyn. Kirkpatrick, one of his followers, then said, he would "mak sicker," and ran in and slew the wounded man. By this murder and sacrilege Bruce put himself at once out of the pale of the law and of the Church, but by it he became the nearest heir to the crown, after the Balliols. This gave him a great hold on the people, whose faith in the virtue of hereditary succession was strong, and on whom the English yoke weighed heavily.
17. Coronation at Scone.—On March 27, 1306, Bruce was crowned with as near an imitation of the old ceremonies as could be compassed on such short notice. The actual crowning was done by Isabella, Countess of Buchan, who, though her husband was a Comyn, and, as such, a sworn foe of Bruce, came secretly to uphold the right of her own family, the Macduffs, to place the crown on the head of the King of Scots.
18. Edward's proposed Revenge.—Edward determined this time to put down the Scots with rigour. Aymer of Valence, Earl of Pembroke, succeeded John of Bretayne as Governor. All who had taken any part in the murder of the Red Comyn were denounced as traitors, and death was to be the fate of all persons taken in arms. Bruce was excommunicated by a special bull from the Pope. The Countess of Buchan was confined in a room, made like a cage, in one of the towers of Berwick Castle. One of King Robert's sisters was condemned to a like punishment. His brother Nigel, his brother-in-law Christopher Seton, and three other nobles were taken prisoners, and were put to death as traitors. This, the first noble blood that had been shed in the popular cause, did much to unite the sympathy of the nobles with the commons, who had hitherto been the only sufferers from the oppression of the conquerors. Edward this time made greater preparations than ever. All classes of his subjects from all parts of his dominions were invited to join the army, and he exhorted his son, Edward Prince of Wales, and 300 newly-created knights, to win their spurs worthily in the reduction of contumacious Scotland. It was well for Scotland that he did not live to carry out his vows of vengeance. He died at Burgh-on-the-Sands, July 30th. His death proved a turning-point in the history of Scotland, for, though the English still remained in possession of the strongholds, Edward the Second took no effective steps to crush the rebels. He only brought the army raised by his father as far as Cumnock in Ayrshire, and retreated without doing anything.
19. Bruce's Struggles.—For several years King Robert was an outlaw and a fugitive, with but a handful of followers. Their lives were in constant danger. Whenever an opportunity offered, they made daring attacks on the English in possession; at other times they saved their lives by hairbreadth escapes from their pursuit. The Celts of the west and of Galloway, who had been won over to the English interest, were against them, and the Earl of Buchan, husband of the patriotic Countess, and his kinsman, Macdougal of Lorn, were Bruce's most deadly enemies. At one time Bruce had met with so many defeats that he left Scotland and thought of giving up the struggle and going to the Holy Land. Tradition says that the example of a spider stirred him up to fresh courage and endurance. He was in hiding in the island of Rachrin, off the north coast of Ireland. As he lay one morning in bed in the wretched hut in which he had taken refuge, he saw a spider trying in vain to throw its web across from beam to beam of the roof above his head. The insect tried six times and failed. Bruce reckoned that he had been beaten just six times by the English. He watched eagerly to see if the spider would try again. "If it does," thought he, "so will I." Once more the spider made the attempt, and this time it was successful. Bruce took it as a happy omen, and went back to Scotland. He joined some of his followers in the Isle of Arran. From the island they went to the mainland, and from that time the tide of fortune seemed to turn, and to bring him good luck instead of bad. Still he had to go through many perils. The story of his exploits has been handed down to us by John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen. As he was born soon after Bruce's death, there may be some truth in the tales which he tells, though it must be borne in mind that they are but tales. He describes Bruce as a strong, tall man, so cheerful and good-humoured that he kept up the spirits of his followers no matter what mishaps befell them, always first in danger, and often owing his life to his own wit and daring. One of his best known feats happened in the country of John of Lorn. Three Highlanders, who had sworn to take his life, set upon him when he was quite alone. One seized his horse's bridle; another tried to take his foot out of the stirrup; the third, leaping on him from behind, tried to unhorse him. Bruce cut them all down and rode off triumphant. His brooch had come loose in the struggle, and was ever afterwards kept as a precious relic in the family of his enemy Macdougal of Lorn. The first decided success of Bruce was the defeat of his old enemy, the Earl of Buchan, who with his followers joined the English, and forced Bruce to right near Inverary. Bruce won the day, and his followers so spoiled the lands of the Comyn that this fray was long remembered as the "Herrying of Buchan." At length the clergy recognized Bruce as their King, and this virtual taking off the excommunication had a great effect upon the people. The little band of patriots increased by degrees. The strongholds were won back, till at last only Stirling was left to the English, and it was so sorely pressed that the governor agreed to give it up to the Scots if he were not relieved before St. John Baptist's Day, 1314. Roused by the fear of losing this, the most prized of all Edward the First's conquests, the English gathered in great force, and marched 100,000 strong to the relief of the garrison.
20. Battle of Bannockburn, June 24, 1314.—The Scots were posted so as to command the plain or carse of Stirling, which the English must cross to reach the Castle. They were greatly inferior to the English in numbers, and had scarcely any cavalry, in which the chief strength of the English force lay. Robert divided them into four battles or divisions. Their leaders were Sir James Douglas; Randolf, his nephew; James the Stewart, and Bruce's own brother Edward. Bruce himself commanded the fourth division, which was placed behind the others, as in it were the men he least trusted, and a small body of cavalry. One flank of the army rested on the Bannock, a small stream or burn, from which the battle took its name. Before the battle joined, as King Robert was reviewing his line, he was challenged to single combat by Henry of Bohun, an English knight, and raised the spirit of his followers by cleaving his adversary's skull. The English began the fight by a volley of arrows, but their archers were dispersed by the small body of the Scottish horsemen whom King Robert sent to charge them. The English cavalry then charged the Scots, but they tried in vain to break the compact bristling masses of the Scottish spearmen, and themselves fell into confusion. Some Highland gillies and camp-followers just then appeared on the brow of a neighbouring hill. The English took them for a reserve of the enemy, were seized with terror, fled in wild disorder, and the defeat became a total and shameful rout. The horsemen in their flight fell into the pitfalls which the Scots had cunningly sunk in the plain. King Edward and 500 knights never drew rein till they reached Dunbar, whence they took ship for Berwick. Great spoil and many noble captives fell that day to the share of the victors.
21. Results of the Victory.—By this battle, won against tremendous odds, the Saxons of the Lowlands decided their own fate and that of the Celtic people by whose name they were called, and to whose kingdom they chose to belong. On the field of Bannockburn they gave the English a convincing proof that they preferred sharing the poverty and turbulent independence of that half-civilized Celtic kingdom to rejoining the more wealthy, prosperous, and settled country from which three centuries before they had been severed. Three more centuries were still to pass before Edward the First's great idea of a Union could be carried out. Bannockburn is noteworthy among battles as being one of the first to prove the value of Wallace's great discovery that footmen, when rightly understood and skilfully handled, were, after all, better than the mounted men-at-arms hitherto deemed invincible. Like Morgarten and Courtray, the fields on which the Flemings and the Swiss about the same time overthrew their oppressors, this victory of the Scots stands forth as a bright example, showing how, even in that age of feudal tyranny, a few men of set purpose, fighting for their common liberty, could withstand a great mass of feudal retainers fighting simply at the bidding of their lords.
22. Bruce's Comrades.—The faithful friends of Bruce, those who had shared his dangers and helped him to win his crown, were no way behind their leader in courage and heroism. The most famous of them all was James of Douglas, son of that Douglas who had been the friend and supporter of Wallace. His own Castle of Douglas was the scene of one of his most daring deeds, hence called the Douglas Larder. The English held his castle, but on Palm Sunday, when the garrison were gone to church, Douglas attacked them suddenly, killed some, and took the rest prisoners. He and his men then went up to the castle, where they feasted merrily on the fare that was being made ready for the English. When they had dined, Douglas bade them bring forth all the provision of food and fuel and pile it up in the castle hall. He then killed the English prisoners and flung their bodies on the heap. Over them he poured their store of wine, which mingled with the blood that still streamed from their gaping wounds. The Scots then set fire to the whole and went off to the woods again, for the free vault of heaven was more to their minds than the constraint of castle walls. All these stories are only tales; but, whether true or not, they show the spirit of the time.
23. Summary.—In this chapter we have seen how Scotland lost her independence by the selfish quarrels of her nobles and the weakness of her King John Balliol; how the rising of Wallace, the first effort for regaining her ancient freedom, was confined solely to the people without the nobles; how it came to nothing from the want of unity of purpose in the nation; how Scotland, after the failure of this attempt, had lost her separate national life and had been united to England; how, when all hope seemed lost, the people rose under a leader who was really a Norman baron, and therefore as much a foreigner to them as any of the governors placed over them by Edward; and how by one great effort they shook off the yoke of the invaders and drove them from the soil.
THE INDEPENDENT KINGDOM.
Robert I. (1)—Chapter of Mitton (2)—Peace of Northampton (3)—Robert's parliaments (4)—his death (5)—David II. (6)—Edward Balliol's invasion (7)—battle of Halidon Hill (8)—capture of the King (9)—Robert II. (10)—the French allies (11)—Raid of Otterburn (12)—Robert III. (13)—Clan battle on the North Inch (14)—relations with England (15)—Albany's regency (16)—battle of Harlaw (17)—Scots in France (18)—death of Albany (19)—summary (20).
1. Robert I., 1314-1329.—The independence which Scotland had lost was won back on the field of Bannockburn. She was to live on as an independent kingdom, not to sink into a mere province of England; but, as the English refused to acknowledge her independence, the war was carried on by repeated invasions and cruel wastings of the northern counties. Douglas, who was so popular that he was called the Good Lord James, and Randolf, whom Bruce created Earl of Moray, were the chief heroes of these raids. Edward was attacked too in another quarter, in Ireland, whither, at the call of the Celtic chiefs, Edward Bruce had gone, like his brother Robert, to win himself a crown by valour and popularity. King Robert himself took over troops to help him. Edward was crowned King of Ireland, but he was killed soon after. Meanwhile the war on the Border still went on. Each side was struggling for Berwick. The Scots won it back, and the English did all they could to retake it, but in vain.
2. Chapter of Mitton.—While the siege went on, the Border counties were so sorely harried by the Scots that at last the Archbishop of York and the clergy took up arms in their defence. But they were thoroughly beaten, and this battle was called the Chapter of Mitton, from the number of clerks left dead on the field. Edward could have ended all this by acknowledging Robert as King, but he would not. A two years' truce was made in 1319, but, as soon as it was ended, he once more invaded Scotland with a large army. He found nothing but a wasted country, for the Scots had carried both provisions and cattle to the hills, nor would they come out to fight, though they harassed the rear of the retreating army. At last the people of the northern counties of England grew weary of the constant struggle. They had suffered so much loss from the inroads of the Scots that they at last resolved that, if the King would not make peace for them, they must come to terms with the enemy on their own account. Edward, who feared that he might thus lose a part of his kingdom, agreed to a thirteen years' truce, which was concluded in 1323. In this treaty Robert was allowed to take his title of King, though the English would not give it him. But when a few years later Edward was deposed and his son Edward the Third placed in his stead, his government would not confirm the truce in the form at first agreed on. The Scots upon this made another raid upon England, swept the country, and carried off their spoil before the eyes of a large English army. The Scots had in their plundering expeditions a great advantage over the English in the greater simplicity of their habits. They were mounted on small light horses, which at night were turned out to graze. They carried no provisions, except a small bag of oatmeal, which each man bore at his saddle, together with a thin iron plate on which he baked his meal into cakes. For the rest of their food they trusted to plunder. They burned and destroyed everything as they passed, and, when they seized more cattle than they could use, they slew them and left them behind on the place where their camp had been.
3. Peace of Northampton.—As by this time Robert's title had, after much strife, been recognized by the Pope and other foreign powers, the English saw that they must acknowledge it too. Therefore a treaty was confirmed at Northampton in 1328 between Robert, King of Scots, and the English King. The terms of this treaty were, that Scotland as far as the old boundary lines should be perfectly independent; that the two Kings should be faithful allies, and that neither should stir up the troublesome Celtic subjects of the other, either in Ireland or in the Highlands. As a further proof of good will, Joan, Edward's sister, was betrothed to Robert's infant son. By this treaty the original Commendation of 924, and all the subsequent submissions to England, whether real or pretended, were done away with. It placed the kingdom on quite a new footing, for now Lothian and Strathclyde were as independent of England as the real Scotland had originally been. The long time of common suffering and common struggles had done for the nation what the good time before it had failed to do. It had knit together the three strands of the different races into one cord of national unity too strong for any outer influence again to sever. But during the long war there had also arisen that intense hatred of everything English which warped the future growth of the nation. This hatred drove Scotland to seek in France the model and ally that she had hitherto found in England, and the influence of France can from this period be distinctly traced in the laws, the architecture, and the manners of the people. Robert's treaty with France was the beginning of the future foreign policy of Scotland. This was to make common cause with France against England, which country Scotland pledged herself to invade whenever France declared war against it.
4. Robert's Parliaments.—Two of the meetings of the Estates or Parliaments of this reign deserve notice. That of 1318 settled the succession to the crown: first, on the direct male heirs in order of seniority; next on the direct female heirs; failing both, on the next of kin. An Act was also passed by this parliament forbidding all holders of estates in Scotland from taking the produce or revenues of these lands out of the kingdom. This law acted as a sentence of forfeiture on the so-called Scottish barons who had larger estates in England than in Scotland, and who preferred living in the richer country. In the parliament of 1326, held at Cambuskenneth, the third Estate, that is, the members from the burghs, was first recognized as an essential part of the National Assembly.
5. His Death.—King Robert owed his crown to the people and to the clergy; of the nobles but few were with him. His reign made a great change in the baronage, for with the forfeited estates of his opponents he laid the foundation of other families, the Douglases for instance, who in after-times proved the dangerous rivals of his own descendants. This was partly owing to his mistaken policy in granting royalties or royal powers within their own domains to certain of his own kindred and supporters. This practice, though at the time it strengthened his own hands, in the end weakened the power of the Crown. He died at Cardross in 1329, leaving one son. He was greatly mourned by the people, for he had won their sympathy by the struggles of his early career, and had become their pride by his final victories. They were justly proud of having a king who was no mere puppet in the hands of others, fit only to wear a crown and to spend money, but a brave, wise man, who had shown himself as able to suffer want and to fight against ill-fortune as the best and bravest among themselves. After King Robert's death, Douglas, to fulfil his last wish, set out with his heart for Spain with a gallant following of the best gentlemen in Scotland. In a skirmish with the Moors, he was surrounded by the enemy, while hastening to the help of a brother knight. When he saw his danger, he took from his neck the silken cord from which hung the Bruce's heart, cast it on before him into the thickest of the fight, crying out, "Pass first in fight as thou art wont to do, and Douglas will follow thee or die." True to his word, he fell fighting valiantly, and his body was found near the casket, which held the heart of the friend and leader whom in life he had loved so well. Douglas was tall and strong, and his dark skin and black hair won him the nickname of the "Black Douglas." The English hated and feared him, but his own people loved him well and remembered him long after his death.
6. David II., 1320-1370.—David, who was only eight years old when his father died, was crowned at Scone and anointed which no King of Scots had ever before been, as this was considered the special right of independent sovereigns only. The government was in the hands of Randolf, who had been appointed Regent by the Estates before the death of the late king. In the early part of the reign the country was torn by a struggle which, as it was really a civil war, was more dangerous to its independence and more hurtful to the national character than the long war with the English had been. This war was caused by those barons who, holding large estates in England, had, by marriage or by inheritance, become possessed of lands in Scotland, which they lost by the Act of the last reign against absentees. Hitherto the so-called Scottish nobles had been Norman barons, with equal interests in both kingdoms, but this act forced them to decide for one or the other. Hence it was the mere chance of the respective value of their lands that decided whether such names as Percy and Douglas should be feared north or south of the Border.
7. Edward Balliol's Invasion.—These disinherited barons gathered round Edward Balliol, the son of King John, and determined on an invasion of Scotland on their own account, giving out that they came to win back the crown for him. Just at this time of threatened danger the Regent died, and was succeeded in his trust by Donald, Earl of Mar, another nephew of King Robert. The invaders landed on the coast of Fife, and at Duplin in Strathearn they defeated a large army under the command of the Regent, who was slain. They then took possession of Perth, and crowned Balliol at Scone, September 24th, 1332. He acknowledged himself the vassal of Edward of England; but the latter did not openly take a part in the war, until the Scots, by their frequent raids across the Border, could be said to have broken the Peace of Northampton.
8. Battle of Halidon Hill.—In the spring of 1333, Edward the Third invested Berwick, and the governor agreed to give it up if it were not relieved by the Scots within a given time. The new Regent, Archibald Douglas, brother to the Good Lord James, marched to raise the siege. It was very much the case of Bannockburn reversed, for now the English had the advantage of being posted on Halidon Hill, close by the town, while the Scots, the assailants, had to struggle through a marsh. The English archers won the day; the Regent was killed; Berwick was forced to yield; and Balliol gave it over to the English, and placed all the strongholds south of the Forth in their hands. For three years longer there was much fighting on the Border with pretty equal success, until the French wars drew the attention of Edward the Third from Scotland, and then the national party began to get the upper hand. David, Earl of Athole, Balliol's chief supporter, was defeated and slain at Culbleen, in the Highlands; and when Robert the High Steward became Regent in 1338, he won back the strongholds. Soon after, Balliol left the kingdom, and in 1341 David and his Queen Joan of England came home from France, where he had been sent to be out of the way of the troubles. Five years of comparative peace followed. A succession of truces were made with England, but they were not strictly kept on the Border.
9. Capture of the King.—While Edward was busy with the siege of Calais, David, to keep up the spirit of the alliance with France, broke the truce between England and Scotland by invading England. He was defeated and captured by the Archbishop of York at the head of the force of the northern counties in 1346. The battle in which he was taken was called the battle of Neville's Cross, from a cross afterwards put up to mark the field by Sir Ralph Neville. For eleven years David remained a captive, and Scotland was governed by the former Regent, the Steward. During that time Berwick was won and lost again. Edward, to whom Balliol had handed over his claim to the kingdom for a pension of two thousand pounds, brought an English army as far as the Forth. As they could neither find provisions to sustain them nor an enemy to fight with, they were forced to return; but they had left such traces of their progress on churches and dwelling-houses that their inroad was remembered as the "burnt Candlemas." In 1347 David was released, the ransom being fixed at 100,000 marks. He made many after-visits to England, and proposed to the Estates, that Lionel, the second son of Edward, should succeed him, but to this they would not agree. He died in 1370, and left no children. After the death of Joan he had married Margaret Logie, a woman of obscure birth.
10. Robert II., 1370-1390.—David was succeeded by his sister's son, Robert, the Steward of the kingdom. This office was hereditary, and it gradually passed into the surname of the family who held it and became common to the different branches. The stewardship was first granted to Walter Fitz-Alan, a Breton baron, by David. Robert was allowed to mount the throne unopposed. It had been feared that William Lord Douglas, who through his mother, a sister of the Red Comyn, represented the claim that had been resigned by the Balliols, would have disputed his right to the throne, but he did not. Robert was twice married. His first wife was Elizabeth More, by whom he had four sons and several daughters. After her death he married Euphemia, daughter of the Earl of Ross, and had two sons and four daughters. The descendants of this second marriage claimed the crown on the ground that the dispensation from Rome had not been obtained, which, as Robert and Elizabeth were near of kin, was needful to make the marriage valid, and the children legitimate. Dispensations for each marriage have since been discovered, which decide the right of Robert's first family.
11. The French Allies.—At the end of the truce with England, in 1385, war broke out again. The French sent a body of 2,000 men, 1,000 stands of armour, and 50,000 gold pieces to the aid of their allies the Scots. Sir John de Vienne, Admiral of France, was the leader of the French auxiliaries. Richard the Second of England, with an army of 70,000 men, invaded Scotland, and marched as far north as the Forth. But the country had been wasted before him, so that the only harm he could do was to destroy Melrose Abbey. Meanwhile the Scots had harried the northern counties of his own kingdom with their French allies. The French afterwards said that in the dioceses of Carlisle and Durham they had burned more than the value of all the towns in Scotland. But the Frenchmen despised the poverty of the Scots, and were disgusted with their way of fighting; and as the Scots in return were uncivil and inhospitable to them, they went away before long, and were as glad to get back to their own land as the Scots were to get rid of them.
12. Raid of Otterburn.—A few years later the Scots barons made another raid on the north of England. An army 5,000 strong mustered at Jedburgh. By the capture of an English spy, they learned that the English meant to keep out of their way, and, while they entered England, to make a counter-raid on the south of Scotland. To defeat this plan the Scots parted their force into two bands, one of which was to enter England on the east, the other on the west. The eastern division, under the Earls of Douglas, Dunbar, and Moray, swept the country as far as Durham. As they were returning laden with spoil, they tarried three days near Newcastle, where were gathered the English barons under Ralph and Henry Percy, sons of the Earl of Northumberland, the Warden of the Marches. Many skirmishes then took place between the two forces. In one of these Douglas took the pennon of Sir Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur, and challenged him to come to his tent and win it back. The next day the Scots moved off and encamped near Otterburn Tower. Percy hurried after them and attacked them in the night. The Scots, though fewer in number, had the advantage of being in a well-defended camp. They won the day, but the victory was dearly bought, for Douglas was slain in the fight. This battle, in which many lives were lost without any real cause, and without doing any good whatever, was reckoned one of the best fought battles of that warlike time. It was all hand to hand fighting, and all the knights engaged in it on both sides showed great valour. Their feats of arms have been commemorated in the spirit-stirring ballad of Chevy Chase. The Scots came back to their own land, bringing with them Hotspur and more than forty English knights whom they had taken prisoners. This fight, which was called the Raid of Otterburn, took place in August 1388.
Robert died in 1390. He left the country at peace; for a truce between England and France, taking in Scotland as an ally of the latter, had been made the year before.
13. Robert III., 1390-1406.—The eldest son of the late King was John, but, as Balliol had made this name odious to the people, he changed it at his coronation to Robert. The country was in a miserable state. The nobles had been so long used to war with England that they could not bear to be at peace. They fought with one another, and preyed on the peasants and burghers. As the King was too weak both in mind and body to restrain them, the Estates placed the sovereign power in the hands of his son David, who was created Duke of Rothesay. This is the first time the title of Duke appears in Scottish history. Rothesay was to act as the King's Lieutenant for three years, with the advice of a council chosen by the Estates. Meanwhile the real rulers were the King's two brothers, Robert, Duke of Albany, and Alexander, Earl of Buchan, who was master of the country north of the Firths, where his ferocity won him the surname of the Wolf of Badenoch. Albany, anxious, as he gave out, to restrain the wild follies of his nephew Rothesay, seized him and confined him in Falkland Castle. There he died. Albany said that he had died from natural causes, but the people believed that he had been starved by his uncle. After his death, Albany, with his associate Archibald, Earl of Douglas, was cleared of suspicion by an act of the Estates. He was afterwards appointed Governor.
14. Clan Battle near Perth.—During this reign there was a deadly combat between two bands of Highlanders on a meadow by the Tay, called the North Inch of Perth. The King and his nobles, and a vast crowd of persons of all ranks, gathered to see them fight. There were thirty chosen men on each side, and they fought as was their wont, with axes, swords, or bows, and wore no armour. Before the fight began one man left the ranks, swam the Tay, and fled. One Henry Wynd, called "Gow Chrom," or the "Crooked Smith," was hired to fill his place. They fought with fury, and did not leave off till ten men, all wounded, were left on the one side, and one only upon the other. Gow Chrom did such good service that he is said to have won the victory for the clan that had enlisted his services, though it is said he knew so little about the matter that he was quite uncertain which side he was fighting for. Like Otterburn, this slaughter simply showed the skill of the combatants in killing one another. The name of the clans engaged, and their cause of quarrel, if they had any, have been alike forgotten.
15. Relations with England.—In 1400, soon after the end of the truce, Henry the Fourth, who by a revolution had been placed on his cousin Richard's throne, revived the old claim over Scotland in order to make himself popular with the English. He announced his intention of coming to Edinburgh to receive the homage of the King and of the nobles, and to enforce his demand he marched as far as Leith at the head of an army. This was the most harmless invasion on record, for, as usual, the Scots had got out of the way, and the English had to retreat without finding an enemy to fight with. About this time George of Dunbar, Earl of March, shifted his allegiance to Henry. He was offended because Rothesay married a daughter of his great rival Douglas, instead of his own daughter Elizabeth, to whom he was betrothed. In 1402 he joined Sir Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur, and defeated an invading body of the Scots under Douglas at Homildon. This was much such an affair as Otterburn, only this time the English won and Douglas was taken prisoner. He afterwards joined the Percies in their rebellion against Henry and fought with them at Shrewsbury. Albany had an army on the Border ready to help the rebels, but their defeat and dispersion brought his plan to nothing. But Albany hit on another way of threatening Henry. He entertained at the Scottish court a person whom he received as the dethroned Richard, who had been discovered in disguise, so the story ran, a fugitive in the Western Isles. In 1405, however, chance threw into Henry's hands an important prize. This was James, Earl of Carrick, second son of the King, and heir to the throne. He was captured by the English, in time of truce, while on his way to France, whither he was sent, nominally to be educated, but really to be out of the reach of his dangerous uncle. Thus, as the head of each government had a hostage for the good behaviour of the other, there was no open war between the two nations. In 1406 Robert died.
16. Albany's Regency.—The death of Robert made no change in the government, though the young King was acknowledged as James the First. There was nominal peace with England, but the work of winning back the Border strongholds still went on. Jedburgh was retaken and destroyed, as the best means of securing it against foreign occupation in future.
17. Battle of Harlaw.—The kingdom was now threatened on the other border, the northern march which parted the Saxons of the north-eastern Lowlands from the Celtic clans of the mountains. The hatred between the hostile races had been growing more and more bitter, and was fostered by constant inroads on the one hand and cruel laws upon the other. The time seemed now to have come when there must be a trial of strength between them. The head of the Celts was Donald, Lord of the Isles, who, though he had sworn fealty to David the Second, again claimed sovereign power over all the clans of the West, and entered into treaties with England as though he had been an independent monarch. He claimed the Earldom of Ross in right of his wife, as her niece, the heiress, had taken the veil. By getting this earldom, the Lord of the Isles became lord over half the kingdom, and he resolved to invade the territory of the King, whom he looked on as a rival. Now the district that lay nearest him, the Lowlands north of the Forth, as it had not been touched by the Border wars, was at this time at once the richest part of the kingdom and the part least accustomed to self-defence. Great therefore was the terror of the burghers and husbandmen at the news that a horde of plundering savages would soon be let loose upon them. They took up arms in their own defence, and they were fortunate in finding a leader whose experience, gained in similar warfare on his own account, well fitted him to withstand the ambitious Donald. This was Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar, the illegitimate son of the Wolf of Badenoch. He had won his reputation by valour in the French wars, and his earldom by carrying off and marrying an heiress, who was Countess of Mar in her own right. The rival races met at Harlaw, in Aberdeenshire, July 24, 1411. Here, as at Bannockburn, the determination and stedfastness of each man in the smaller force decided the fortune of the day. For, though the Highlanders, reckless of life, charged again and again, they made no impression on the small compact mass that kept the way against them, and they were at last forced to retreat. This battle was justly looked on as a great national deliverance, greater even than the victory at Bannockburn, and many privileges and immunities were granted to the heirs of those who had fallen.