■MhisimD fojl rrrs. piwi'rte 
 IROWST. GREEN frXOSlGMAN 
 EK & C? PAIOS, & ASJTEE , EtE 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2014 
 
 https://archive.org/details/scottscotland01ritc 
 
SCOTT AND SCOTLAND. 
 
 BY 
 
 LEITCH RITCHIE, Esq. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "TURNER'S ANNUAL TOUR," " SCHINDERHANNES,'' " ROMANCE 
 OF FRENCH HISTORY," &C. 
 
 WITH 
 
 TWENTY-ONE HIGHLY FINISHED ENGRAVINGS, 
 
 FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS 
 
 BY GEORGE CATTERMOLE, Esq. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, AND 
 LONGMAN. 
 
 PARIS : RITTNER AND GOUPILL. BERLIN: A. ASHER. 
 PHILADELPHIA: T. WARDLE. 
 
 1835. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY J. HADDON AND CO., DOCTORS' COMMONS. 
 
fit. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT.- 
 
 The whole of the twenty-one plates which embel- 
 lish the following pages, are meant to illustrate, not 
 only the present volume, but the tales, romances, 
 and poems, of Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 The introduction of this novelty into the Pic- 
 turesque Annual, the proprietor was aware would be 
 attended with great additional expence ; but he was 
 encouraged to make the experiment by several con- 
 siderations. In the first place, he was induced, by 
 the success of the preceding volumes, to rely upon 
 the support of the public ; and, in the next place, 
 he was convinced, from the considerable circulation 
 of other works of a similar kind, that the field of 
 competition is wider and more open than has hitherto 
 been suspected. But, above all, he imagined, from 
 the peculiar nature of his present undertaking, that 
 it could not fail to be acceptable to the lovers, both 
 of literature and art. 
 
 The country to be illustrated was Scotland — the 
 country of Scott — the country where the spirits of 
 history, summoned by his enchantments, haunt 
 
iv 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 visibly its mouldering temples and ruined castles. 
 The association, therefore, was direct, nay unavoid- 
 able, which led to the plan of the work. It was 
 determined to illustrate, at the same moment, Scott 
 and Scotland — to delineate, with the utmost pos- 
 sible fidelity, existing scenes, and yet to superadd a 
 moral interest, by peopling them with the creations 
 of genius. 
 
 It will be found also, that the author has had in 
 view, although less ostensibly, the same object as 
 the artist. Contented to wait for the Life of Scott, 
 expected from Mr. Lockhart, he has not sought to 
 add to the number of criticisms and mcmoires pour 
 servir that have already appeared. Neither has it 
 been his ambition to publish a new itinerary in a 
 country so well, and so frequently explored. 
 He has attempted to illustrate Scott and Scotland 
 by illustrating the Historical Manners of the 
 People ; and, if after perusing his slight volume, 
 the reader find himself in any degree better qualified 
 to understand, and appreciate, those of his illustrious 
 countryman, his hopes will be amply realized. 
 
 The mottos of the chapters will be recognised as 
 being all taken from the poems of Scott. 
 
 Although the volumes of the Picturesque Annual 
 will continue, as heretofore, to be each a separate 
 and complete work, the plan of the present will 
 be followed out till the interest of the subject is 
 exhausted. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter. Page. 
 I. Poetical Epistle (Introductory) to the Artist, 
 
 Cattermole .1 
 
 II. Theory of the Origin of the Peculiarities of 
 
 Scottish Manners and Character . . 10 
 
 III. The Same Subject Continued . . .29 
 
 IV. The Borders 40 
 
 V. The Tweed — the Beacon Towers — Melrose 
 
 Abbey — Neidpath Castle ... 55 
 
 VI. Tradition of the Maid of Neidpath . . 65 
 
 VII. Origin of the Wandering Habits of the Scots 78 
 
 VIII. Ancient Friendship and Alliance between 
 
 France and Scotland .... 89 
 
 IX. Crichtoun Castle 101 
 
 X. Superstitions of the Scots . . . . .114 
 
 XI. The same subject continued . . . . 127 
 
 XII. The Valley of the Esk 139 
 
 XIII. Edinburgh : origin — progress — manners . J 48 
 
 XIV. Holyroodhouse— Edinburgh Castle . . 161 
 XV. Arms, and Military Habits of the Scots . 178 
 
 XVI. Linlithgow 191 
 
 XVII. Lochleven Castle 198 
 
 XVIII. Assassination of the Regent Murray . . 213 
 XIX. Stirling 225 
 
 XX. Glasgow 238 
 
 XXI. Banks of the Clyde 251 
 
ENGRAVINGS, 
 
 FROM DRAWINGS BY GEORGE CATTERMOLE, ESQ. 
 
 Page 
 
 1. Melrose Abbey 59 
 
 2. Glendearg 63 
 
 3. Neidpath Castle 77 
 
 4. Crichtoun Castle Ill 
 
 5. Roslyn Chapel 142 
 
 6. Edinburgh Castle 152 
 
 7. West Bow 162 
 
 8. Queen Mary's Closet 167 
 
 9. Queen Mary's Bedchamber . . . .172 
 
 10. Linlithgow 191 
 
 11. Forth at Queensferry 201 
 
 12. Lochleven Castle, (first view) .... 203 
 
 13. Lochleven Castle, (second view) . . . 213 
 
 14. Murder of the Regent Murray . . .221 
 
 15. Stirling Castle 227 
 
 16. Guard Room in Stirling Castle . . . 236 
 
 17. Crypt under Glasgow Cathedral . . . 245 
 
 18. Craignethan Castle 253 
 
 19. Banquetting Hall, Craignethan Castle . 254 
 
 20. Gallery in Craignethan Castle, (vignette) . 254 
 
 21. Falls of the Clyde 255 
 
SCOTT AND SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EPISTLE TO GEORGE CATTERMOLE, ESQ. 
 
 Again upon my waking dream 
 Rise the grey cairn and lonely stream ; 
 Lost voices to my ear return 
 From many a long-forgotten urn ; 
 The night-wind, wailing sad and chill, 
 Comes wildly from the desert hill ; 
 O'er the dim heath the moonbeams creep 
 To many a tumulary heap ; 
 And, gliding thus from tomb to tomb, 
 Wander, like corpse-lights, through the gloom. 
 
 What forms are those, of dusky hue, 
 That keep this mystic rendezvous ? 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 THE GATHERING. 
 
 From the grey cairn, the ruined tower, 
 The sullen stream, the antique bower, 
 From the poor hind's deserted bield, 
 From yonder proud historic field, 
 From hill, from plain, from rocky shore, 
 From wold, and darkling wood, they pour, 
 From silent lake, and lonely glen — 
 Who hath call'd up those shapes again ? 
 
 Not mine the magic to compel 
 The past unto my wizard spell — 
 To me is given a heart alone 
 Responsive to the master tone ; 
 I pay no vows at Nature's shrine 
 Save through her chosen priests divine ; 
 And thus, a lowly devotee, 
 I bow, dear Cattermole, to thee ! 
 
 Wave then thy mystic wand, and shower 
 Upon the page those tints of power, 
 To summon from their mouldering grave 
 The fair, the faithful, and the brave. 
 Small though his portion in thine art, 
 Yet dull of eye, and dead of heart 
 Thy comrade on this spot would be 
 To claim no fellowship with thee ! 
 Threw not that cold and troubled sky 
 Its shadows o'er his infant eye ? 
 Climbed he not yonder mountain's side 
 In boyhood's joy, and boyhood's pride ? 
 
HOME. 
 
 3 
 
 Plunged he not in yon dusky main 
 Deep as the wild-duck, and again 
 Upbounding, shouted shrill and brave, 
 Defiance to the stormy wave ? 
 
 Oh, many a weary league since then 
 I've wandered in the haunts of men ! 
 Oh, many a land hath spread for me 
 Her fairest, richest canopy ! 
 Oh, many a hand, in friendship's grasp, 
 To mine hath given clasp for clasp ! 
 Oh, many a bower, oh, many a grove, 
 Have listened to my notes of love ! 
 Yet, exiled from my native strand, 
 Where have I found or sweeter land, 
 Or lovelier love, or truer hand ? 
 Onward I roved on foreign ground, 
 But no continuing city found. 
 An unweaned child, I could not rest 
 For thinking of my mother's breast ; 
 A stranger and a pilgrim, I 
 Could find no other place to die ; 
 But ever turned a longing heart, 
 To thee who wert, to thee who art, 
 In sun and shade, through good and ill, 
 Scotland — my home — my country still I 
 
 But not alone th' instinctive band 
 Which binds us to our native land — 
 Not on the wanderer's heart alone 
 Those fairy links of love are thrown : 
 
i 
 
 MY NATIVE RIVER. 
 
 Thought, taste, and fancy on the side 
 Of holy nature are allied, 
 And art hath taught me to adore 
 The charms I only loved before. 
 
 Romantic Clyde ! beloved stream ! 
 Thus rising on my lonely dream, 
 Thou seem'st a goddess of old song 
 To whom no traits of earth belong — . 
 A spirit of beauty, whose bright eye 
 Doth rule the tides of poesy ! 
 Thy circling hills, and waving woods, 
 Thy currents calm, and headlong floods, 
 The rich winds o'er thy bosom straying, 
 The music in thy groves delaying, 
 Thy birds, and flowers, and whispering trees — 
 But exoteric symbols these : 
 While thou, the goddess' self, apart 
 Dwell' st in thy faithful votary's heart, 
 Each meaner feeling to refine, 
 To prompt and urge the headlong line, 
 To raise, console, sustain, and shower 
 High influence on his darkest hour. 
 
 And smile not, though so wild my dream 
 When that fair river is the theme ; 
 For every spot its banks around 
 To me, my friend, is haunted ground ! 
 Time did not quench my youthful flame, 
 Nor slow and dull experience tame ; 
 
THE WANDERING SCOT. 
 
 5 
 
 I saw not, drooping day by day, 
 Or falling, one by one, away, 
 The fairy flowers, the visions high 
 That gleam'd before my infant eye. 
 I saw not stripp'd of leaf and tree 
 The paradise that bloomed for me, 
 Till the bleak winds of life at last 
 Ran moaning o'er a barren waste. 
 Flnng sudden on the ocean stream 
 While yet in my first morning dream, 
 I saw the lost, the lovely land, 
 Recede like some enchanted strand ! 
 What marvel, then, if longing eye 
 I turn'd towards my native sky ? 
 What marvel if a sod so sweet 
 Ne'er blest the weary Ishmael's feet ? 
 What marvel if that mystic spot 
 Seem'd heaven to the wandering Scot ? 
 
 Strange how our superstitions twine, 
 Each with the next, until a line 
 They weave, that through each varied stage 
 Runs on from infancy to age, 
 Linking the spring with summer weather, 
 And chaining youth and years together ! 
 
 Thus did that nameless, shapeless dread 
 Which scar'd me on my cradled bed, 
 (An embryo terror, blank and dim) 
 Resolve into the spectre grim. 
 
 b 3 
 
6 
 
 GHOSTS AND WITCHES. 
 
 Then paled the stars, then moaned the breeze, 
 Then voices whispered in the trees, 
 And flitting lights the church-yard o'er, 
 And shapes that beckoning stalked before, 
 And shrieks from forth the tumbling flood 
 Curdled so cold my boyhood's blood ! 
 
 But these, when boyhood's courage grew, 
 As if at cock-crow, sudden flew ; 
 And in their stead a mystic band 
 Rise gloomy in the troubled land : 
 O'er the new scene of fear preside 
 The hags that on the tempest ride ; 
 And wizards fling their potent spell 
 Over the world invisible. 
 Yet soon begins the sky to clear, 
 As waxeth fast the human year ; 
 To broomstick witch and warlock fly, 
 Their latest ' whirs' in distance die, 
 Sinks in the ground th' unhallowed fire, 
 And with a hiss the flames expire. 
 
 Then smiles the scorched earth anew, 
 Then falls again the balmy dew, 
 Then flowers exhale their odorous breath 
 Where rose the noisome steams of death, 
 And fountains run their margins o'er 
 Where the hell-cauldron hissed before. 
 No incantation deep and strong 
 The echoes of the Clyde prolong ; 
 
FAIRIES. 
 
 7 
 
 But fairy harps from bower and grove 
 Awake the dulcet notes of love, 
 While fairy feet, in mirthful dance, 
 Among the glancing moonbeams glance, 
 And fairy voices, swelling high, 
 Bear burden to the minstrelsy. 
 
 Not quite of fear my tremor tells, 
 Nor quite in faith my bosom swells, 
 When 'neath my wondering glance there grow 
 The glories of that spectral show : 
 O'er my half-wakened heart I feel 
 A strange unwonted softness steal ; 
 My bosom heaves with aimless sighs, 
 And tears bedew my half shut eyes. 
 Not all a dream ! not all a dream ! 
 Mingling with that small beautv's beam 
 I see, and with a blush confess 
 The traits of mortal loveliness. 
 Almost as bright — and tiny too, 
 Some lassie, with her eyes of blue, 
 Hath thus usurped, in face and mien, 
 The graces of the ellin queen ! 
 O fair delusion ! loved deceit ! 
 Dear hast thou cost me, poison'd sweet ! 
 With fiction still worse fiction blending, 
 In dreams begun, in falsehood ending ! 
 
 But hark ! a blast of battle-horn, 
 On Kempuck's midnight breezes borne, 
 
8 
 
 EDUCATION OF A POET. 
 
 Comes sudden down the lone hill-side, 
 
 And wakes the echoes of the Clyde, 
 
 Which, starting at the hostile strain, 
 
 Answer that challenge back again. 
 
 Not long my ear the sound retains, 
 
 Nor long the shadowy joust remains 
 
 To glad or grieve my boyish eye 
 
 With deeds of Elfin chivalry. 
 
 With sterner shades the air is thick, 
 
 Boils my young blood, my breath comes quick ; 
 
 I see from many a hoary tomb 
 
 My country's ancient heroes come ; 
 
 From old historic fields afar, 
 
 The stately march of Scotland's war 
 
 Echoing o'er hill and moorland grey, 
 
 All feebler visions scares away. 
 
 And thus, dear comrade, did my mind 
 Its nurture, or its poison, find ; 
 And thus, the flowery mazes past, 
 Did fiction lead to truth at last, 
 And fancy her wild garlands tie 
 O'er the stern brows of history. 
 
 Ask not of me the glance severe, 
 The learned frown, the caustic sneer, 
 When turning to my native land, 
 ' From wandering on a foreign strand ' ' 
 Like him, whose lore, from passion gained, 
 Taught that the world two parts contained, 
 
love's geography. 
 
 9 
 
 (Unknown the others, or forgot,) 
 
 ' Where is my love, and where is not — ' 
 
 Two eras, even so, combine 
 
 To form this luckless life of mine. 
 
 One is the age of high romance, 
 
 Of haughty heart and daring glance, 
 
 Of generous purpose, bold emprize, 
 
 And golden dreams, and cloudless skies. 
 
 The other ! — but depict for me 
 
 The age of dread Reality 
 
 O ye mute witnesses — the eye 
 
 Tearless and cold, — the unconscious sigh, 
 
 The scornful lip, the sinking heart, 
 
 The sleepless night, the frequent start, 
 
 The darkening frown, the smile uncouth, 
 
 The grey hairs on the brow of youth ! 
 
 But linked with all of good and bright, 
 These shores now bless the wanderer's sight, 
 Who, turning from the darkened main, 
 Greets his lost paradise again. 
 Leave then to others, gifted mate, 
 The task of satire, envy, hate ; 
 And wave thy mystic wand, and shower 
 Upon the page those tints of power, 
 To summon from their mouldering grave 
 The fair, the faithful, and the brave ! 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 From Coilgach first who roll'd his car 
 Through the deep ranks of Roman war. 
 
 That the interest inspired by Scotland, its peo- 
 ple, institutions, and manners, is vastly greater than 
 the political importance of the country would seem 
 to warrant, cannot be disputed. Let me inquire, as 
 I bend my wandering footsteps homewards, why this 
 should be the case — why the student of history 
 dwells so attentively on the fortunes of a people, 
 whose nobles were little better than the chiefs of 
 banditti — and why, at this day, when the nation 
 has no separate and peculiar historical existence, the 
 chosen field of romance and song, should be 
 
 "the noble north countrie?" 
 
 The inquiry, however, to be fairly prosecuted, 
 would lead farther back than the reader would 
 choose to accompany me. Few persons would care 
 
EARLY POPULATION. 
 
 11 
 
 to look down into the gulf which contains the ori- 
 gines of the North Britons, and their peculiarities. 
 What are those Caledoniae to us with whom the 
 Romans thought it worth while to contest, for up- 
 wards of three centuries, the possession of a few 
 leagues of heath and forest ? What the gallant 
 Picts who defended their country against the Scots 
 for a still longer period? What the Scots them- 
 selves, a horde of roving banditti, unmentioned in 
 history till the fourth century, who, in spite of the 
 wild beasts and wilder men who opposed them, 
 chose to found their empire, apparently from some 
 moral sympathy, in the lonely glens and mountain 
 fastnesses of Caledonia ? 
 
 And yet, after all, there is a certain fascination in 
 the subject ; and the names I have mentioned serve 
 as words of power to call up a thousand strange 
 associations. The Caledonians, the Picts, and the 
 Scots, seem to hang together, not only in succession, 
 but descent ; and the avatar of the last race looks 
 like the fulfilment of a prophecy, towards which all 
 the jarring elements of nature, both moral and phy- 
 sical, had been insensibly working. The characters 
 of all three exhibit only external or circumstantial 
 points of difference — resembling in this respect, 
 the rude soil which they inhabited, sometimes a 
 wood, sometimes a blasted heath, yet always sub- 
 stantially the same. The Caledonians may have been 
 a portion of the first stream of population which 
 issued out of the depths of Scythia, and overflowing 
 Gaul, stopped only at the Mediterranean coasts of 
 
L2 
 
 DARKNESS OF HISTORY. 
 
 Spain ; the Picts, it is believed, were a new colony 
 from the same vast and mysterious region ; and the 
 Scots were no other than a tribe of Gauls, who 
 perhaps had preserved their original Scythian blood 
 pure from Roman contamination, and at length, re- 
 volting against the empire, sought refuge and liberty 
 in Ireland and Caledonia.* 
 
 But it is with the Scots themselves, and not with 
 their remote ancestry I have to do at present ; and 
 unhappily I find myself, for many centuries, groping 
 as obscurely on one subject as on the other. From 
 the period of the withdrawal of the Roman legions 
 from Britain in the fifth century, to the final con- 
 quest of the Picts by Kennet II, in the ninth, all is 
 fable ; and, by a still more unhappy fatality, from 
 the ninth century onwards to the close of the fif- 
 teenth, all, or almost all, is conjecture. At this 
 epoch Edward I. of England (on whose head be the 
 curse of every muse !) carried off or burnt the pub- 
 lic archives of Scotland ; and the piety of the his- 
 torian Fordun, was able to do little more than 
 collect the scattered fragments that were snatched 
 from the flames. 
 
 Before the light of history, therefore, streams 
 fully upon Scotland, we arrive at the most interest- 
 ing period in the annals of modern Europe. The 
 sterner features of feudality have vanished ; a new 
 
 * Those writers who are fond of a high antiquity say, that the Scots 
 and Picts were the same people, and of the original race found by the 
 Romans in Caledonia. The former name distinguished those who inha- 
 bited the mountainous country, and the latter the dwellers on the plains. 
 
SINGULAR ANOMALY. 
 
 13 
 
 power called the People has appeared upon the stage, 
 courted b) r turns by the king and his nobles, and 
 destined one day to hold the balance between both ; 
 charters of community have been extorted by the 
 Italian cities, and purchased by those of France, 
 and other feudal kingdoms ; deputies have been 
 called from the enfranchised towns into the delibera- 
 tive assemblies of the nation ; judicial combats and 
 private wars have been prohibited ; standing armies 
 have been established for the maintenance of royal 
 authority ; and every where the world seems to be 
 progressing towards a new order of things, in which 
 the frightful aristocracy of the feudal ages will at 
 last succumb to the crown, and thus the fifty headed 
 hydra Tyranny have only one mouth left wherewith 
 to devour. 
 
 That the boroughs of Scotland at this period en- 
 joyed, to a certain extent, the privileges of the towns 
 of France and England is matter of certainty ; and 
 we might therefore reasonably expect to find the 
 country participating in the movement common to 
 the rest of Europe. This, however, is not the case. 
 The nobility are still masters of the kingdom, and 
 the sovereign is in most cases a cypher. The same 
 state of things continues while Scotland exists as a 
 separate and independent nation ; and long after it 
 has ceased to be so — even within the memory of 
 living men — the traces of the aristocratical form of 
 government, obliterated from the laws, are religiously 
 preserved in the habits of the people. 
 
 This singular anomaly is noticed by the historian 
 c 
 
14 
 
 ORIGIN OF CLANS. 
 
 Robertson ; and in endeavouring to account for the 
 preponderance of the aristocracy, he mentions as one 
 great cause the division of the country into clans. 
 
 " The nations which overran Europe" says he, 
 "were originally divided into many small tribes; 
 and when they came to parcel out the lands which 
 they had conquered, it was natural for every chief- 
 tain to bestow a portion, in the first place, upon 
 those of his own tribe or family. These all held 
 their lands of him ; and as the safety of each indi- 
 vidual depended on the general union, these small 
 societies clung together, and were distinguished by 
 some common appellation, either patronymical or 
 local, long before the introduction of surnames, or 
 ensigns armorial. But when these became common 
 the descendants of every chieftain assumed the same 
 name and arms with him ; other vassals were proud 
 to imitate their example, and by degrees they were 
 communicated to all those who held of the same 
 superior. Thus clanships were formed ; and, in a 
 generation or two, that consanguinity which was at 
 first, in a great measure imaginary, was believed to 
 be real. An artificial union was converted into a 
 natural one ; men willingly followed a leader whom 
 they regarded both as the superior of their lands 
 and the chief of their blood, and served him,, not 
 only with the fidelity of vassals, but the affection of 
 friends." 
 
 This theory of the formation of the Scottish clans 
 may be correct ; but it applies in the same manner 
 to every other feudal kingdom in Europe, where 
 
ORIGINAL NOBILITY. 
 
 15 
 
 clans do not and never did exist! This circum- 
 stance appears to have struck the elegant historian 
 I have quoted ; but he passes it over without 
 inquiry. 
 
 Again, he accounts for the extraordinary power of 
 the nobility by the paucity of their number ; assuming 
 that Scotland being a small and poor kingdom could 
 not afford a settlement for many of the invading 
 chiefs at the division of the spoil. It seems to me, 
 however, that " the nations which overran Europe" 
 must have been governed by laws, or regulations, 
 like other banditti ; and that their general, on con- 
 quering a country, could hardly divide it among a 
 few of his captains to the exclusion of the rest. If 
 I am right, the number of the fiefs must have been 
 regulated, not by the extent or richness of the land, 
 but by the number of the chiefs whose rank or 
 means entitled them to a share of the booty. 
 
 In short, in whatever way the subject is viewed, 
 a mystery appears to hang over the Scottish people ; 
 and to dissipate this, or try to do so, the inquirer 
 must not be satisfied to follow in the old traces, or 
 " cantare in verba magistri : " he must suspect a 
 difference in the cause, where he finds so irrecon- 
 cileable a difference in the effect ; and ask boldly, 
 whether the chain of circumstances operating on the 
 destinies of Scotland was not wholly different from 
 that which involved the fate of the rest of Europe. 
 
 We are indebted to Caesar for some knowledge of 
 the Gauls, or Celts, whom he subdued ; and like- 
 wise to contemporary writers for an account of the 
 
16 
 
 FRANKS AND NORMANS. 
 
 Franks and Normans, who, at an interval of four 
 centuries between their incursions, descended like 
 clouds of locusts upon the same country. We are 
 thus able to compare the relative manners and civi- 
 lization of these barbarians, and to deduce from the 
 result a fact no less curious than important in its 
 connection with our present inquiry. 
 
 The Franks in the fifth century, and the Normans 
 in the ninth, appear to have reached pretty nearly 
 the same point of civilization. The patriarchal 
 form of government, if it ever existed, was lost. 
 The people were divided into small tribes, led on 
 to battle by an elective general. Strength was 
 their only law, — and war and hunting their only 
 business. 
 
 The progressive history, also, of these two nations 
 is very much alike. The general, who, on the re- 
 turn from a battle, was accustomed to sink into the 
 station of a private individual, becomes no longer 
 subject to this vicissitude. In a hostile country, 
 surrounded by enemies, the invaders never lose the 
 character of an army ; and the post of leader cannot 
 be vacant for an instant. The people become ac- 
 customed to be ruled by one man ; and the chief, at 
 first merely a captain of war, is not slow in acquir- 
 ing the habits of general command. He divides the 
 booty, whether in lands, cattle, or men ; promulgates 
 new laws applicable to the new situation of the 
 tribe ; and, in fine, converts his baton of field-mar- 
 shal into a royal sceptre. 
 
 This state of things passes away in turn. Seated 
 
ARISTOCRATIC A L GOVERNMENT. 17 
 
 in a fertile country, filled with corn, cattle, and 
 slaves, the character of the conquerors receives a new 
 modification. The land-owners, following the ex- 
 ample of their fortunate comrade, now their King, 
 desire to perpetuate in their own families the good 
 things they had obtained as the reward of fidelity. 
 The legislative functions which they had exercised 
 as lieutenants of the prince became part and parcel 
 of their own dignity ; their separate seigniories by 
 degrees assumed all the attributes of independent 
 states; and the homage, or acknowledgment of 
 superiority, which was the condition of their original 
 tenure, became an empty form. Then arise the 
 struggles between the king and his nobles, and the 
 individual jealousies and animosities of the latter. 
 The power of the crown depending entirely on the 
 support of its vassals, there is no permanent public 
 authority ; every thing, therefore, is left to the 
 arbitrement of arms; the kingdom is desolated by 
 private wars, and the form of government (if any 
 form can be said to exist), although nominally royal, 
 degenerates into the worst species of aristocracy. 
 
 This is the history up to the period of unmixed 
 feudality — but more or less modified, of course, by 
 circumstances — of all the barbarians who overturned 
 the empire of the west. The state of the Gauls, how- 
 ever, at the time of Caesar, presents no analogy with 
 any of the above epochs in the existence of a nation. 
 
 How long this ancient people had inhabited the 
 plains of Gallia, and through what changes of go- 
 vernment they had passed, it is impossible to ascer- 
 c 3 
 
18 
 
 GAULS. 
 
 tain : we only know that they were found by the 
 Romans in a state of political society as remote from 
 barbarism, as in their manners they were themselves 
 remote from the refinement of civilization. Gaul was 
 a kind of confederation of states, each governed by 
 a king of limited and responsible power ; and to this 
 political division it was owing that Caesar found so little 
 difficulty in vanquishing the whole, by introducing 
 jealousies and dissensions into the parts. Amongst 
 the Gauls the mass of the people were slaves ; the 
 nobles alone were the state, and the king was merely 
 an officer elected to preside at their councils. The 
 country, therefore, may be said to have formed a 
 confederation of pure aristocracies, bound together, 
 however loosely, by a common interest; yet thus 
 containing in its very being the germs of dissolution. 
 
 Feudality is the descendant — and never a very 
 remote one — of conquest; such a confederation as 
 that of the Gauls could only have grown under the 
 influence of time and internal tranquillity. It 
 seems to me, to be plain, from the very fact of such 
 a form of government co-existing with rudeness of 
 manners, that the Gauls were, in all probability, the 
 original inhabitants of the country, and that they 
 had never passed — and never could pass — through 
 the stage of feudality at all. 
 
 At what period a tribe of this people emigrated 
 to Scotland is of little importance ; neither would 
 it answer much purpose to inquire whether they 
 found the Picts before them, or whether the Scots 
 and Picts, as some believe, were identical. The 
 
SOUND OF MULL. 
 
 19 
 
 cause of the unimportance of the question is, that 
 supposing a conquest to have been made, the usual 
 effects of a conquest did not take place. The lands 
 and persons of the aborigines were not seized by the 
 invaders, and the conquering army did not sit down 
 on the field of victory, and become a feudal nation. 
 Even after the entire subjugation of the Picts, the 
 victor sent back his troops into their own mountains, 
 and united, on equal terms, the highlands and low- 
 lands in one monarchy. 
 
 Previous to this time the seat of Scottish royalty 
 was in the islands — in a locality worthy the domi- 
 nion of a prince of the elements ! 
 
 <f The Sound of Mull," says Scott, " which di* 
 vides that island from the continent of Scotland, is 
 one of the most striking scenes which the Hebrides 
 afford to the traveller. Sailing from Oban to Aros 
 or Tobermory, through a narrow channel, yet deep 
 enough to bear vessels of the largest burden, he has 
 on his left the mountainous shores of Mull ; on the 
 right that district of Argyleshire called Morven or 
 Morvern, unceasingly indented by deep salt water 
 lochs, running up many miles inland. To the south- 
 eastward arises a prodigious range of mountains, 
 among which Cruachan Ben is prominent. And to 
 the north-east is the no less huge and picturesque 
 range of the Ardnamurchan hills. Many ruinous 
 castles, situated generally upon cliffs over-hanging 
 the ocean, add interest to the scene. Those of 
 Dunolly and Dunstaffnage are first passed ; then that 
 of Duart, formerly belonging to the chief of the 
 
20 
 
 CRADLE OF THE MONARCHY. 
 
 warlike and powerful sept of the Macleans, and the 
 scene of Miss Baillie's beautiful tragedy, entitled the 
 Family Legend. Still passing on to the northward, 
 Artornish and Aros become visible on the opposite 
 shores ; and, lastly, Mingarry and other ruins of less 
 distinguished note. In fine weather, a grander and 
 more impressive scene, both from its natural beau- 
 ties, and associations with ancient history and tradi- 
 tion, can hardly be imagined. When the weather 
 is rough, the passage is both difficult and dangerous, 
 from the narrowness of the channel, and in part 
 from the number of inland lakes, out of which sally 
 forth a number of conflicting and thwarting tides, 
 making the navigation perilous to open boats. The 
 sudden flows and gusts of wind, which issue without 
 a moment's warning from the mountain glens, are 
 equally formidable : so that, in unsettled weather, 
 a stranger, if not much accustomed to the sea, may 
 sometimes add to the other sublime sensations ex- 
 cited by the scene, that feeling of dignity which 
 arises from a sense of danger." 
 
 Such were the localities in the midst of which 
 this wandering tribe founded their empire. Without 
 giving undue importance to the fabulous chronicles 
 of the Scots, we may believe that here the form of 
 government they had been accustomed to at home, 
 received only such modifications as were rendered 
 necessary by the exigencies of their new and perilous 
 situation. One of the first of these modifications 
 would be the establishment of a hereditary instead 
 of an elective throne. In times of trouble and 
 
ESTABLISHMENT OF CLANS. 
 
 2] 
 
 danger men cling to the leaders in whom they have 
 been accustomed to place confidence ; and among 
 the Scots there no doubt speedily arose a prototype 
 of the Norman Rollo — able to take the tide of for- 
 tune at the flood. By degrees scarcely perceptible, 
 however, this would lead to absolutism ; if, indeed, 
 it ever reached that point at all. The other chiefs 
 would watch with hereditary jealousy every step of 
 a monarch to whom, notwithstanding, they were 
 attached by the strongest ties of interest. The 
 people would still remain their subjects, or slaves ; 
 but the adventures and vicissitudes of their wander- 
 ing life, and the now constant dependance of the 
 lord upon the arms of his followers, would gradually 
 substitute for the chains of slavery the still stronger 
 bonds of mutual sympathy. This result would be 
 hastened by the familiarity of close contact and as- 
 sociation, so necessary in the new and savage land 
 to which their destinies had led them ; where the 
 retainers of a chief, for the sake of mutual protec- 
 tion, would huddle their dwellings round the base of 
 the steep on which his was erected, or where the 
 stormy sea hemmed them in like prisoners, in some 
 small and lonely island of the Hebrides. 
 
 At first perhaps the size of the island gave their 
 limits to the population and power of the individual 
 tribes. Sometimes, however, successive emigrations 
 would take place, and these would extend the com- 
 mon name. The chief of each sept would still be 
 acknowledged even by its colonies on the main ; and 
 the jealousies and enmities existing among the 
 
22 
 
 FREE SLAVES. 
 
 various leaders, and inevitable in so rude a state of 
 society, would serve as an effectual barrier against a 
 mixture of the people. Thus, however anomalous it 
 may appear, the system of clans would be produced 
 by the same causes which established the monarchy. 
 
 All these circumstances, we may easily conceive, 
 must rather have strengthened than weakened the 
 aristocratical spirit of the Scots, however they may 
 have modified its character. The meanest slave of 
 the soil would feel himself a freeman ; for in losing 
 its compulsory form, slavery always loses its sense 
 of degradation. The honour of the chief would be- 
 come that of the clansmen. The former would be 
 literally the head of the body politic, and every in- 
 jury he sustained would convey a shock through the 
 whole system. The natural pride and haughtiness 
 of the patricians would thus be increased in exact 
 proportion with the gentler humanities of their na- 
 ture ; and the chief, who in the company of his fel- 
 lows looked askance with a suspicious or disdainful 
 eye, on returning to the bosom of his clan would re- 
 lax into kindness and familiarity. And this kindness 
 and familiarity, be it observed, would form the true 
 cement of the system, without which, like other 
 social institutions, it would have yielded easily and 
 early to the action of the moral elements. The 
 Scots were never divided, like the other nations 
 of modern Europe, into two classes, the grandees 
 and the people. Each petty aristocracy, com- 
 posed of the chief and his tenants or dependants, 
 formed a single body — animated by the same spirit, 
 
CONSANGUINITY OF CLANS. 
 
 and actuated by the same interests. The consan- 
 guinity between the clansmen and their chief may 
 either have been a fiction originating in a common 
 metaphor, or a reality, produced, in the course of 
 time, by the restrictions to which each little society 
 was liable. It may also, no doubt, have been aided 
 by the licentiousness on the part of the lord and 
 his family, to which the unbounded devotion of the 
 followers would almost necessarily lead. But this 
 does not matter. The idea did arise, and was fos- 
 tered by the pride of both parties. In a feudal 
 nation it never could have arisen ; for the trampled 
 slave has no interest and no sympathy in common 
 with his master. Even among the wandering de- 
 scendants of the Gauls, who probably remembered, 
 in tradition, a different state of society, it was ne- 
 cessary to account for their feeling of relationship ; 
 and thus "blood is thicker than water" became a 
 proverbial saying with the "kindly Scot." 
 
 In a system like this there was nothing degrading, 
 because it was regulated by the strictest principles 
 of reciprocity. If the head could not be touched 
 without affecting all the parts, so neither could the 
 minutest part be injured without affecting the head. 
 An outrage committed upon a clansman was an in- 
 sult offered to the chief; and thus each individual 
 felt as if the might of the whole body resided in his 
 single arm.* The haughtiness generated by this 
 
 * In 157f# a quarrel of a vassal of Argyle with one of Athol hastened 
 the fall of the Regent Morton. The latter earl flew to arms to avenge his 
 
24 
 
 LOWLANDS. 
 
 feeling at once of power and security was imposed 
 even upon their gait and aspect, and might be read 
 in the keen, bright eye, erect figure, and decisive 
 step of the mountaineer, who seemed to look at the 
 passer-by the later motto of his country — "Nemo 
 me impune lacessit ! " 
 
 Before directing the same brief and superficial 
 glance at the lowlands, it may be necessary to pre- 
 mise that the lowlands of Scotland are only low- 
 lands comparatively. The whole country is a moun- 
 tainous region, rising in height, and increasing in 
 irregularity towards the north, broken at the coast 
 into innumerable islands, and penetrated in every 
 direction by the Atlantic and Northern Seas. Many 
 smiling valleys and many fertile plains no doubt are 
 seen in this wild domain ; but the former are domi- 
 nated by naked mountains, and the latter are fre- 
 quently lost in seemingly endless undulations of 
 barren heath, on which the eye of the Southron wan- 
 ders in discomfort or dismay. Of nineteen millions 
 of acres, of which the superficies of the country 
 consists, only seven are cultivated even at the present 
 day ; and over this extent of area, equal to half that 
 of England, a population is scattered amounting to 
 not more than a seventh part of the inhabitants of 
 South Britain. 
 
 clansman, and the former to protect his ; but the interposition of the 
 Regent forced them both to disband their forces. Morton founded a 
 charge of treason on this common occurrence; and the two earls entered 
 into a confederation against him, which ultimately brought him to the 
 scaffold. 
 
MAGIC OF A NAME. 
 
 25 
 
 It will be felt, therefore, that in the lowlands 
 pretty nearly the same character prevailed among 
 the people, so far as this is formed or developed by 
 the external circumstances of situation ; while their 
 more tempting valleys, and the easier access afforded 
 to marauders, must have kept up a military spirit as 
 high as that which distinguished the highlands. On 
 the borders of England, more especially, and on the 
 frontiers of the mountain country, the very same 
 system of clanships in all probability prevailed, and 
 from the very same causes, long before the introduc- 
 tion of surnames. The idea of a clan, indeed, 
 has become so closely associated with the " magic 
 of a name," that it is necessary to remind the reader 
 that these distinctions cannot boast of a high anti- 
 quity in Scotland. Some writers trace their origin 
 to the time of Malcolm Kenmore in the eleventh 
 century ; but there is no reason to suppose that they 
 became at all general, at least in the north of Scot- 
 land, earlier than the thirteenth.* The individuals 
 of the various tribes, therefore, must have been 
 distinguished by some designation peculiar to the 
 chief ; and perhaps, after all, the idea of consangui- 
 nity may have arisen from this simple circumstance. 
 
 * So late as 1465 we find this enactment in the Irish Statutes. 5 Edwd. 
 IV. chap. 3. "That every Irishman that dwells betwixt, or amongst 
 Englishmen, in the counties of Dublin, Myeth, Uriel or Louth, and 
 Kildare, should take upon him an English surname of one town, as 
 Sutton, Chester, Trim, Skryne, Cork, Kinsale ; or colour, as White, 
 Black, Brown; art or science, as Smith, Carpenter; or office, as Cook, 
 Butler ; and that he and his issue shoull use such name, under the penalty 
 of forfeiting of their goods yearly." 
 
 D 
 
26 
 
 CHANGE OF CHARACTER. 
 
 Before the union of the highlands and lowlands 
 under one monarch, a gradual change must have 
 taken place in the character of the latter. The 
 partial settlement of the Britons between the Clyde 
 and the Sol-way, and the incursions of the piratical 
 tribes from the mouths of the Elbe and the shores 
 of the Baltic, had left, no doubt, some traces in the 
 manners of the people ; while on the sourthern 
 limits of the kingdom a Saxon colony was already 
 established — the nucleus of a power destined to 
 play so important a part in the history of Scotland. 
 An interval of comparative peace, however, had 
 operated still more powerfully on the lowlanders. 
 Since they were first roused, like wild beasts, from 
 their forest-lairs by the Britons, they had always 
 been less " sinned against than sinning." Even the 
 Romans would gladly have abandoned the idea of 
 conquering a country at once so poor and so brave, 
 had they not been continually forced to make the 
 attempt in self-defence. Now, however, the esta- 
 blishment of the Anglo-Saxon power in the south- 
 ern division of Britain formed a rampart against 
 their invasions still stronger than the Roman wall ; 
 and this restless people had turned their swords into 
 ploughshares, and, with all the enthusiasm of their 
 character, set themselves to cultivate the verdant 
 valleys that smiled between their ridges of heath 
 and mountain. 
 
 The victory of Kenneth Mac Alpin, though aided, 
 no doubt, by a descent made simultaneously upon 
 the coasts by the northern pirates, owed, it is to be 
 
MODERATION OF A VICTOR. 
 
 27 
 
 presumed,, its conclusive nature to this change in 
 the habits of the people. The result of the victory 
 can only be explained by some such theory of the 
 common origin and common character of the 
 highlanders and lowlanders, as I have attempted 
 to develope. 
 
 No division of lands took place ; no slavery, nor 
 even oppression, was introduced among the van- 
 quished ; not one step advanced towards the con- 
 dition of feudality. Kenneth, or his immediate 
 descendants removed the seat of government to the 
 lowlands, and by a system of equal laws attempted 
 to extend a peaceable sway over both parts of the 
 kingdom. This project could hardly have been con- 
 ceived had there existed a very marked difference 
 in the language, manners, and customs of the two 
 races. The two, in fact, must have been identical, 
 or at least, two branches of one family. A move- 
 ment, however, had commenced in one, while the 
 other was destined to remain long stationary. Even 
 the conquest of Kenneth contributed to hasten the 
 progress of the lowlanders towards a change of cha- 
 racter. Afraid to contend, at such a moment, with 
 the strangers to whose diversion he had in part 
 owed the victory, he permitted their peaceable es- 
 tablishment on the western coasts, side by side with 
 the colony of the Anglo-Saxons ; and they in turn, 
 received a little later, with open arms, the kindred 
 tribes of Norwegians and Danes, who poured in 
 floods upon the shores of Britain in the ninth cen- 
 tury. Thus commenced the intermingling of races 
 
28 
 
 MARCH OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 and nations on the soil of Scotland ; and thus, gra- 
 dually polished, even by the friction of still ruder 
 barbarians than themselves, the lowlanders entered, 
 however late and lingeringly, into the march of 
 civilization. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Too oft shall the notes of Macrimmon's bewailing 
 Be heard when the Gael on their exile are sailing ; 
 Dear land ! to the shores whence unwilling we sever, 
 Return — return — return — shall we never ! 
 
 The character of the highlanders and islesmen, 
 on the other hand, continued necessarily the same. 
 They looked with indignation from their alpine 
 solitudes upon the changes operating around them — 
 changes which they could neither feel nor under- 
 stand, being themselves untainted by the admix- 
 ture of foreign blood. They received with the 
 embrace of fraternity such lowlanders as chose to 
 fly rather than submit to the sway of Kenneth and 
 his descendants. Each tribe or clan attached itseL 
 more closely to its chief ; the authority of the king 
 was forgotten or renounced; and the mountaineers 
 at length came to look upon themselves as Scots par 
 excellence : bestowing the general name of Saxons 
 upon all the rest of the people, whose possessions they 
 d3 
 
30 
 
 SINGULAR POSITION. 
 
 considered to be their own birth-right, and which 
 they were ever ready to redeem by the strong arm, 
 in such instalments as their number and strength 
 allowed. 
 
 The lowlanders, in the meantime, although inter- 
 mingled with strangers, had not lost their identity. 
 Fierce, jealous, and intractable — divided into clans or 
 tribes, and preserving their hereditary suspicion of 
 kingly power, their political existence was a con- 
 tinual struggle. It became the policy of the kings 
 to seek the services and alliance of foreign lords, as 
 a protection against their own unruly vassals ; and 
 the Norman barons, established in the kingdom by 
 Malcom Kenmore, introduced a taste for luxury 
 and show among the natives, while they incorporated 
 in the laws their own feudal institutions. To this 
 new legislature the Scots willingly acceded, for they 
 found in it nothing repugnant to the customs and 
 manners handed down to them, and their brothers of 
 the mountains, from their remotest ancestry. And 
 thus Scotland at length presented the spectacle, 
 anomalous in itself, and unique in Europe, of a 
 feudal nation that had never been subdued, and a 
 free people who were the property of their chiefs. 
 
 It is to these contradictions it is owing that we find 
 something strange, original, and not rarely affecting, 
 in Scottish story. That unnatural classification of 
 men in other countries, and those traits of prodi- 
 gious pride which it gave rise to, and for which we 
 blush with indignation, even after an interval of 
 many hundred years — are here wanting. In lieu of 
 
BRUCE AND THE WASHERWOMAN. 31 
 
 these, our imagination is warmed with instances of 
 the most heroic devotion and fidelity ; and the hum- 
 ble serf, instead of ranking with animals of a dif- 
 ferent and inferior species, takes his station in every 
 attribute of his kind by the side of his master. 
 And let not modern liberalism sneer at this devotion 
 of a vassal to his lord, for it was not the devotion of 
 a slave, but of a friend. It was the homage, blended 
 into one, of a son to a father, and a subject to his 
 prince ; and it was paid, not to a tyrant and oppres- 
 sor, but to a leader who was at once the chief of the 
 tribe and the head of the race. 
 
 Among the many beautiful instances that might 
 be selected to shew the meeting of the two classes 
 
 o 
 
 of society at a common point, and to prove that no 
 moral barrier existed between the great and the 
 mean, I cannot help alluding here to the anecdote 
 of Bruce and the poor washerwoman. Scott de- 
 scribes it as illustrating the "chivalrous generosity" 
 of the hero's character ; but alas ! the practice, if 
 not the laws, of chivalry bore little reference in that 
 age to the poor and lowly. It is an incident, in my 
 opinion, purely Scottish — notwithstanding the re- 
 mote Norman ancestry of Bruce — and could scarcely 
 have occurred, at a period when the feudal distinc- 
 tions prevailed over all Europe, in the person of any 
 other than a " kindly Scot." 
 
 The king has heard a woman cry, 
 He asked what that was in hy, 
 " It is the layndar, sir," sai ane, 
 That her child-ill right now has ta'en, 
 
32 
 
 MOAN-MAKING. 
 
 And must now leave behind us here, 
 Therefore she makes such evil cheer." 
 The king said, "Certes, it were a pity 
 That she in that point left should be 
 For certes I trow there is no man 
 That he no will rue a woman than." 
 His host all there arrested he, 
 And gert a tent soon stinted be, 
 And gert her gang in hastily, 
 And other women to be her by, 
 While she was delivered he bade ; 
 And syne furth on his ways rade. 
 Aud how she forth should carried be 
 Or be furth fure ordained he. 
 
 The soldiers of Bruce, from the peculiarities of 
 their national manners, were in all probability accus- 
 tomed to such traits of sympathy in their leaders ; 
 but even were it otherwise, can we suppose that any 
 man of that party who witnessed the above would 
 hesitate to lay down his life for such a chief ? Akin 
 to this species of sympathy is the grief exhibited by 
 the fiery and gallant Edward, brother of the great 
 Bruce, on the destruction of Neil Fleming and his 
 guards. Edward was no moan-maker, he scorned 
 the weakness himself, and would not permit it in 
 another — 
 
 For he was not customably 
 
 Wont for to moan men any thing, 
 
 Nor would he hear men make moaning— 
 
 and the sacrifice of the guards besides had saved his 
 whole army ; yet he was so much overpowered by 
 grief on this occasion, as to excite the surprise of all 
 who heard his lamentations. 
 
BANNOCKBURN. 
 
 33 
 
 This sympathy on the part of the chiefs was fol- 
 lowed by the natural and necessary consequence of 
 entire devotion on the part of the followers. At the 
 battle of Bannockburn the fortune of the day was 
 decided by the enthusiasm of a crowd of menials 
 who remained with the baggage in the rear. When 
 the conflict was at its highest, unable to remain 
 longer inactive spectators of the chivalry of their 
 lords, they elected a captain among themselves, 
 snatched up any thing they could find in the sem- 
 blance of arms, hung pieces of cloth upon poles to 
 shew as banners, and plunging gallantly into the 
 melee shouting their war-cry, put the English army, 
 already wavering, to open flight. Barbour tells the 
 story without manifesting the smallest surprise. 
 
 Yeomen, and swanyes, and pitail, 
 
 That in the park ymet victual, 
 
 Were left: when they wist but lesing 
 
 That the lords with full fighting 
 
 On their foes assembled were; 
 
 One of their selwyn that were there 
 
 Captain of them all they made. 
 
 And sheets, that were somedale braid, 
 
 They fastened instead of banners 
 
 Upon long trees and spears, 
 
 And said that they would see the fight, 
 
 And help their lords at their might. 
 
 When here — till all assented were, 
 
 In a route assembled er, 
 
 Fifteen thousand they were or ma, 
 
 And then in great haste gan they go, 
 
 With their banners, all in a route, 
 
 As they had been men styve and stout. 
 
 They came with all that assembly, 
 
 Right till they might the battle see ; 
 
 Then all at once they gave a cry, 
 
 " Slay ! Slay ! Upon them hastily ! " 
 
34 
 
 ANOTHER FOR HECTOR. 
 
 If we come down to later times, the instances of 
 devotion to the chief on the part of the followers 
 are so numerous, that the task of selection is ex- 
 tremely difficult. I may mention, however, as a sin- 
 gle case, a circumstance which occurred at the battle 
 of Inverkeithing in the time of Oliver Cromwell. 
 Five hundred of the clan of Maclean were already 
 dead upon the field, and Sir Hector, the chief of 
 that gallant name, was so hotly pressed by the ene- 
 my that all hope of escape seemed vain. The sur- 
 vivors of the clan, however, "though few and faint, 
 were fearless still." They gathered about their lea- 
 der to die for him, or to die with him. Seven bro- 
 thers, one after the other, rushed forwards to shield 
 his life with their own. When one fell the next 
 stepped into his place, crying, "Another for Hec- 
 tor ! " till they were all slain. 
 
 If I have succeeded, in the above pages, in con- 
 veying a clear idea of my meaning, the reader will 
 be in possession of at least one hypothesis whereby 
 to account for the original aspect presented by the 
 Scots to this day. That they still retain in their 
 manners a very remarkable tinge of antiquity is ma- 
 nifest even to the cursory traveller ; and the reader 
 of Scottish history will have no difficulty in disco- 
 vering the reason. It is hardly now "sixty years 
 since" when the country began to breathe in quiet, 
 and the people to submit to that tide of innovation, 
 which had so long ago demolished the ancient land- 
 marks of customs and manners in more peaceful 
 England. 
 
DEPOPULATION OF THE HIGHLANDS. 35 
 
 It was not till the year 1748 that heritable juris- 
 dictions were entirely done away with in the high- 
 lands ; and up to this period the power of the chiefs 
 had remained unchanged. When at length they 
 were reduced, partly by legislative enactments, and 
 partly by force of arms, to the station of private 
 gentlemen, their hereditary pride assumed a new and 
 less amiable direction. A crowd of followers, how- 
 ever brave and devoted, were now of no use ; and the 
 lowland gentry, waxing in wealth, began to look with 
 contempt upon their neighbours of the hills, whose 
 consequence was maintained by the empty and ludi- 
 crous appendage of a train of ragged retainers, over 
 whom they possessed no legal authority. It became, 
 therefore, a question with the chiefs in what way, in 
 the new form of society in which they found them- 
 selves, to maintain a state suitable to their ancestral 
 dignity, and to enter fairly into competition with the 
 pride of the lowlands. 
 
 Previous to this time each chief was a sovereign 
 prince, whose power consisted in the number of his 
 armed subjects. The lands were consequently let 
 at the smallest possible rent, and divided, and subdi- 
 vided with the utmost possible minuteness. To raise 
 the rents was out of the question ■ for the produce 
 of the fields was barely adequate to the subsistence 
 of the population, and no convertible surplus existed. 
 To get rid of the excess of population was therefore 
 the obvious remedy. The chiefs dispossessed the 
 small farmers ; the farmers dispossessed their te- 
 nants ; the tenants their cotters ; a voice of wailing, 
 
36 
 
 SCOTTISH HISTORY. 
 
 mingled with execration arose from the highlands. 
 The clansmen, driven from the homes of their 
 fathers, emigrated by thousands to America ; those 
 who were permitted to remain threw off indignantly 
 that moral allegiance, which had once been their 
 pride ; and the chiefs proceeded to Edinburgh or 
 London, to spend the surplus of their rents, and 
 learn to dance quadrilles. 
 
 This, be it observed, is a general picture. In nu- 
 merous individual instances the chiefs sacrificed every 
 prospect of aggrandisement to the pride and happi- 
 ness of retaining around them the ancient adherents 
 of their family : and to this day there are to be seen, 
 in several parts of the highlands, all the kindness 
 and condescension on the one part, and all the devout 
 fidelity on the other, of the ancient Scots. 
 
 " It is not by accident " says an elegant French 
 author, " that Scotland has produced the first writer 
 who has undertaken to present history under an as- 
 pect at once real and poetical. It is the strong tinge 
 of originality in the history of his country, which, 
 touching from his early years the imagination of 
 Walter Scott, rendered him so acute in seizing 
 whatever was most characteristic in the annals of 
 foreign nations. But in spite of his immense talent 
 for calling up the scenes of the past, it is from the 
 history of Scotland he has produced the most inter- 
 - est, and the greatest number of new emotions. The 
 attraction of his historical romances, the scene of 
 which is laid in Scotland, may be referred by some 
 to the picturesque aspect of the country, its moun- 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM. 
 
 37 
 
 tains, its lakes, and its torrents ; but in fact, the 
 profound interest they inspire proceeds much less 
 from such material causes than from the living pic- 
 ture they exhibit, of a series of political commotions 
 which, never in all their violence, produce disgust, 
 because passion and conviction are the moral agents 
 rather than intrigue. There are other countries in 
 Europe where nature appears in a still vaster as- 
 pect than in Scotland ; but there are none in which 
 so many civil wars have raged, with so much good 
 faith in the midst of hatred, and so much warmth of 
 heart in the midst of political predilection. From 
 the first enterprise of the Scottish kings against the 
 independance of the highlanders, down to the reli- 
 gious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centu- 
 ries, and the political insurrection of the eighteenth, 
 we see every where the same spirit, and almost the 
 same character which appear so picturesque in 
 Rob Roy and Waverley."* 
 
 The view taken by the writer of the fictions of 
 Sir Walter Scott exhibits much of that philosophical 
 spirit with which French literature is at present 
 imbued. So far from conceiving fiction to be a mere 
 amusement of the imagination, he considers wisely 
 that history may receive back, with advantageous 
 interest, what was originally borrowed from its stores 
 by the romancer, who is the historian of manners. 
 
 "Walter Scott," says he, "romancer as he is, has 
 given to the historical scenes in which his sometimes 
 
 * Translated from an introduction by M. A. Thierry to a clever Resume 
 of the History of Scotland by M. Armand Carrel. 
 
 E 
 
38 
 
 WARS OF RACES 
 
 imaginary personages figure, a still higher reality 
 than the historian attains.* He never presents the 
 history of a Revolution without describing the things 
 which rendered it inevitable, and which in all after 
 times would produce the same effects — things exist- 
 ing in manners, and modes of living, in the compo- 
 sition of the people, in their division into distinct 
 races, rival grades of society, and warring factions. 
 The most important of these distinctions, that of 
 races, and the original hostility of the highlanders 
 and lowlanders, are the ground-work on which he has 
 raised con a?nore, the fictitious adventures of his heroes. 
 While perhaps only seeking the means of touching 
 the imagination more vividly by contrasts in man- 
 ners and characters, he has gone to the very sources 
 of historical truth. He has exhibited the fixed 
 point, round which have circled, so to speak, all 
 the great revolutions, either attempted or accom- 
 plished in Scotland : for we find the mountaineers 
 opposed to the inhabitants of the plains in the wars 
 of the dynasties, in which one pretender strives 
 against another — in the wars of aristocracy, where 
 the nobles strive against the king — in the wars of 
 religion, where Catholicism is at issue with reform 
 — in fine, in the revolts so vainly planned for break- 
 ing the bond of union between England and Scot- 
 land under a single government. This kind of 
 "historical unity, which is not visible to the same 
 degree in any other country, entering into details 
 
 * Referring particularly to Robertson, whose disdain of the earlier 
 portion of Scottish history he reprobates not without cause. 
 
EXPLANATION. 
 
 39 
 
 apparently quite distinct from each other, has pro- 
 duced in great part, the vivid interest attached, for 
 the first time, to stories of love embodied amidst 
 scenes of ancient history." 
 
 It being my purpose in the following pages to at- 
 tempt some illustrations of Scottish history and man- 
 ners, it will perhaps be deemed excusable that, in the 
 present and foregoing chapter, I have endeavoured to 
 direct attention towards the peculiar circumstances 
 which operated upon the production or development of 
 the character of the people. To dogmatise upon a 
 subject where there are so few ascertained facts would 
 be ridiculous as well as unbecoming ; and if the 
 gentle reader pleases to accept of my speculation as 
 a mere essay for debate, I shall be abundantly satis- 
 fied. The objurgations which M. Thierry bestows 
 upon Robertson for plunging in medias res, and thus 
 exhibiting history as a chapter of accidents, are not 
 undeserved. In order fully to comprehend the poli- 
 tical march of a people, it is necessary to be ac- 
 quainted not only with the peculiarity of races, but 
 even with the physical aspect of the country. The 
 Scots more especially require all the appliances and 
 means of history ; and I may add that, judging by 
 what they are in comparison with what they have 
 been, after an interval of little more than half a cen- 
 tury of internal tranquillity, they richly deserve the 
 attention of the inquirer. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A stark, moss-trooping Scot was he, 
 As e'er couch'd border lance by knee : 
 Through Solvvay sands, through Tarrass moss, 
 Blind-fold he knew the paths to cross; 
 By wily turns, by desperate bounds, 
 Had baffled Percy's best blood-hounds; 
 In Eske, or Liddel, fords were none, 
 But he would ride them one by one ; 
 Alike to him was time or tide, 
 December's snow, or July's pride; 
 Alike to him was tide or time, 
 Moonless midnight, or matin prime : 
 Steady of heart, and stout of hand, 
 As ever drove prey from Cumberland ; 
 Five times outlawed had he been, 
 By England's king and Scotland's queen. 
 
 It has often been remarked how instantaneous, in 
 many places, is the change of character and accent, 
 perceived by the traveller, on entering the territory 
 of Scotland from the English side. This seems the 
 more surprising, as the boundary line between the 
 two countries appears to have been fixed by pure 
 accident, with very little reference to the geography 
 
BOUNDARY LINE. 
 
 n 
 
 of nature. On glancing at the map, one would 
 think that Agricola had hit upon the true division, 
 when he erected a frontier wall between the Friths 
 of Forth and Clyde : but before doing so, he had to 
 fight his way through the Caledonians, which is 
 proof sufficient of at least the antiquity of our claim 
 to a more southern portion of the soil. 
 
 The second wall of the Romans extended from 
 the Solway Firth to the embouchure of the Tyne — 
 a prodigious portion of the conquest abandoned to 
 the conquered! — and when Antonine afterwards 
 endeavoured to re-establish the original line, the 
 territory between the two walls continued a field of 
 battle, sometimes lost and sometimes won, till the 
 fall of the empire under Arcadius and Honorius. 
 At this period the Roman legions were recalled ; 
 and, enriched as they were with the elite of the 
 British youth, they of course left the country nearly 
 defenceless. The wall of Adrian itself was no 
 longer a protection, and the Caledonians carried fire 
 and sword even to the banks of the Humber. 
 
 At length the appearance of the Saxons, and 
 after them of the Angles, changed the face of affairs. 
 The Britons and Caledonians — who appear to have 
 been born with the instinctive hatred of the lion 
 and the leopard — fought fiercely in the same ranks 
 against the strangers, whom each had, at first, been 
 happy to court; and after various vicissitudes of 
 fortune, the line of demarcation, between the two 
 portions of the island was finally drawn, from the 
 Solway Firth to the embouchure of the Tweed. This 
 e 3 
 
12 
 
 BORDERS. 
 
 line being distinctly marked, although only for a 
 small space, by the course of the latter river, we 
 say, in common parlance, " the two sides of the 
 Tweed," to designate Scotland and England. 
 
 It may be conceived, that there was good reason 
 why these two sides, separated even by an imaginary 
 line, should have preserved entire their distinctive 
 character for many centuries. The borders, in fact, 
 in whatever state the rest of the kingdom might be, 
 were at continual war. In all national quarrels they 
 necessarily led the van ; but when peace was 
 established, they did not, like the rest of the army, 
 return to repose. Their deeds of prowess were to 
 be revenged by their neighbours, and thus a con- 
 stant fermentation was kept up. Before the union 
 of the two crowns, their mutual incursions bore all 
 the features of war ; and the power of the barons, 
 more particularly on the Scottish side, surrounded 
 as they were, with devoted adherents of the same 
 name, and sheltered in an almost inaccessible coun- 
 try, set the royal authority at defiance. 
 
 The military force of the kingdom at that time, 
 consisted entirely of the barons and their retainers, 
 and a militia, furnished by the burroughs. The 
 idea of a standing army, so fatal to aristocracy in 
 other countries, was held in utter abomination ; and 
 so late as the regency of Mary of Guise, when it 
 was proposed to organize a force of regular troops, 
 for the defence of the borders, all Scotland took the 
 alarm ; and a body of three hundred of the lesser 
 
MILITARY HABITS. 
 
 43 
 
 barons * waited upon the regent, and delivered their 
 remonstrances in a tone which she could not with- 
 stand. 
 
 From the time of the first James, every Scot was 
 trained to arms from his youth, not only by custom, 
 but by law. According to the provisions of this 
 prince, every male, on reaching the age of twelve 
 years, was publicly exercised in archery, and those 
 who neglected to present themselves regularly at 
 the time and place were fined, either by the king's 
 sheriff or the lord of the land.t The importation of 
 
 * The greater barons were those who continued to hold their original 
 estates undivided, and were a small though powerful body, resembling 
 more the rivals than vassals of the king. The possessions of some, how- 
 ever, became gradually parcelled out, in the course of time, into different 
 hands ; and these new freeholders were called the lesser barons. The 
 obligation to sit in parliament was thought very vexations by the latter 
 class, who were numerous, and not in general wealthy; but they at 
 length obtained, from James I., an exemption from personal attendance, 
 on condition of sending two commissioners from each county. Thus were 
 introduced knights of the shires, the representatives of the landed pro- 
 perty of the country. The lesser barons, however, appear to have thought 
 even this condition grievous ; for they almost never complied with it, 
 till compelled to do so by James VI. The greater barons continued as 
 before, to represent themselves ; and the burgesses had sal in parliament 
 since the time of Robert Bruce. 
 
 + The origin of the office of sheriff is lost in antiquity. By the famous 
 statute alluded to in the preceding chapter, which abolished heritable 
 jurisdictions, and thus dissolved the highland clans, the court received its 
 present form. The high-sheriff is now no longer a judge, but an execu- 
 tive officer of the government, and his appointment is generally held, 
 where it exists at all, in connexion with that of lord-lieutenant of the 
 county. The sheriff-depute is wholly independent of the high-sheriff, 
 holding his office directly from the crown, ad vitam aut culpam. He 
 is authorized to appoint a substitute, or substitutes, from whose decision 
 an appeal lies to himself, while his own fiat is liable to review in the 
 same manner as that of the courts of royal burghs. Besides his civil 
 jurisdiction, he is competent to the trial of all crimes except treason and 
 
44 
 
 ARMED POPULATION. 
 
 weapons of war was encouraged, and a variety of 
 rules laid down for arming the people. The pro- 
 prietor of a twenty-pound estate, or the possessor of 
 a hundred pounds in other property, was obliged to 
 be mounted and armed at all points. Those of half 
 such substance were to be accoutred in hat, gorget, 
 gauntlets, and other steel defences. Burgesses and 
 others, enjoying twenty pounds of moveable pro- 
 perty, were to provide themselves with an iron 
 head-piece, a habergeon, bow and arrows, sword, 
 buckler, and knife. The poorer classes were armed 
 according to their means, at the discretion of the 
 sheriffs ; it being understood, in general, that they 
 who had no bow and arrows, should have in lieu a 
 battle-axe, target, sword, and dirk. These regula- 
 tions were enforced, or improved, by the four suc- 
 ceeding Jameses ; but the sixth of the name limited 
 his military zeal, to the task of encircling his person 
 with forty gentlemen in arms, who enjoyed two hun- 
 dred pounds per annum each, for guarding the life 
 of the king. 
 
 It may easily be imagined, that if this was the 
 state of the country generally, the borders, where 
 the people were accustomed every day, not only to 
 the exercises, but the realities of war, must have 
 presented, if possible, a still more military aspect. 
 The description of the " custom of Branksome 
 
 the - four pleas of the crown, sometimes with and sometimes without a 
 jury, according to the magnitude of the olfence. In 1785 a sentence of 
 death, pronounced by this officer, was carried into execution; while, by 
 a singular contradiction, he could not have punished by transportation 
 beyond seas, or even banishment from Scotland. 
 
CUSTOM OF BRANKSOME. 
 
 45 
 
 Hall," in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, may be 
 taken as a specimen, by no means exaggerated, of 
 the state held by the barons. 
 
 Nine and twenty knights of fame 
 
 Hung their shields in Branksome hall ; 
 
 Nine and twenty squires of name 
 
 Brought them their steeds from bower to stall ; 
 
 Nine and twenty yeomen tall 
 
 Waited duteous on them all : 
 
 They were all knights of metal true, 
 
 Kinsmen to the bold Buccleuch. 
 
 Ten of them were sheathed in steel, 
 With belted sword and spur on heel: 
 They quitted not their harness bright, 
 Neither by day nor yet by night : 
 They lay down to rest 
 With corslet laced, 
 Pillowed on buckler cold and hard ; 
 
 They carved at the meal 
 
 In gloves of steel, 
 And they drank the red wine through the helmet barr'd. 
 
 Ten squires, ten yeomen, mail clad men, 
 Waited the beck of the warders ten ; 
 Thirty steeds both fleet and wight, 
 Stood saddled in stable day and night; 
 Barbed with frontlets of steel, I trow, 
 And with Jedwood axe at saddle bow : 
 A hundred more fed free in stall :— 
 Such was the custom of Branksome-hall. 
 
 The above " knights of mettle true "were in gene- 
 ral clansmen of the chief, all bearing the same name, 
 and all serving for honour as well as interest. They 
 were attached not only to the person but to the ter- 
 ritory, being each allowed a certain portion of land, 
 
46 
 
 PRIVATE WAR. 
 
 for their border service ; and thus their private for- 
 tune as well as their life or liberty was in constant 
 jeopardy. It is probable that these lands were held 
 on a sort of feudal understanding, without any writ- 
 ten document ; and even the lords themselves would 
 have been puzzled to make good their own claim 
 unassisted by the swords of their clan. In the high- 
 lands especially it was thought ignominious to ac- 
 cept a charter for possessions which they had kept, by 
 the strong arm, from all antiquity. Macdonald of 
 Keppoch was one of those who thus disdained to 
 ' ' hold his lands in a sheep's skin ;" and the conse- 
 quence was that the estates which he forfeited in 
 " the forty-five" were never recovered by his direct 
 descendants. 
 
 A little earlier, neither charters nor patents could 
 have stood in the way of Scottish legitimacy. So 
 late as the restoration, when Sir John Campbell, 
 of Glenorchy, was invested by charter with the 
 estate of Sinclair, earl of Caithness, he was obliged to 
 fight for the lands and the earldom too. The estate 
 had been made over to him, as the principal creditor, 
 by the earl ; on whose death he married the countess, 
 and assumed the title, as territorial, and inalienable 
 from the land. The legality of his claim was ad- 
 mitted by government, and he received a patent of 
 the earldom; but they all reckoned without the 
 Sjnclairs. The clan rose, like one man, to defend 
 the rights of the lineal heir ; and the new earl, in- 
 stead of having recourse to law, mustered eleven 
 hundred Breadalbane men, and, joined by the fol- 
 
CONQUEST OF AN EARLDOM. 
 
 lowers of his brother-in-law, the laird of Macnab,* 
 marched across the country, and climbed through 
 the wild passes of the Ord into Caithness. In vain 
 the Sinclairs fought and bled. Glenorchy triumph- 
 ed in a pitched battle ; and quartering his army 
 in the country for three years, levied the rents and 
 taxes at the point of the sword. The Sinclairs, 
 however, although beaten, were not subdued. Un- 
 able to make full head against the intruders, they 
 rose in Guerilla parties wherever they found oppor- 
 tunity; and at length harrassed the conqueror so 
 much that he was fairly sick of his conquest. A 
 negociation took place, and a reference to the king 
 in council was agreed to — when it was discovered 
 that the title belonged, not to the land, but to the 
 male heir ! In the sequel Glenorchy was consoled 
 for his mortification by being created earl of Bread- 
 albane on a new patent ; and the earldom of 
 Caithness, thus recovered by the faithful clan, de- 
 volved upon the lineal descendant, George Sinclair 
 of Neiss.t 
 
 * Laird— heritor, or landowner. In 1709 a small heritor in Mid-Calder 
 M as fined by the justices of peace in 1000 Scots in his quality of gentle- 
 man. He " suspended" on the ground that he was not a gentleman ; and 
 the question being tried by the lords of session, they restricted the 
 fine to about a tenth part, because "suspender had not the face or air of 
 a gentleman !" 
 
 + The Caithness men were always noted for valour. To this hour it is 
 held to be unlucky to cross the Ord on a Friday; the day on which the 
 flower of the district marched over the mountain, to die, almost to a 
 man, on the fatal field of Flodden. It is mentioned by Mr. Pennie, in 
 his very excellent and talented work " Britain's Historical Drama," that 
 so late as the year 893 a human sacrifice was offered to Odin, by Einar, 
 thane of Caithness! The victim was Haldanus, prince of Norway. 
 
48 
 
 JAMES V. ON THE BORDERS. 
 
 This happened, however, in the extreme north of 
 Scotland, separated from the rest of the country by 
 a range of mountains impassable till a few years ago 
 by wheeled carriages, and fenced round on the sea- 
 ward side by the stormy Orcades. Caithness, be- 
 sides, although a comparatively local district, was at 
 that period almost a desert, except on its wild and 
 extraordinary coast, where a fishing trade was then, 
 as now, carried on.* It is therefore not so very 
 surprising that Glenorchy and the Sinclairs should 
 have been left to fight it out : — but on the borders 
 the case was widely different. The Scottish sove- 
 reigns were perfectly aware of their importance, and 
 carried on a perpetual, but generally fruitless strug- 
 gle with the warlike barons, who held there a state 
 little inferior to royalty itself. 
 
 When James V., in 1529, determined to hold a 
 flying court of justice on the borders, he proceeded 
 there with an army of ten thousand men. So unac- 
 customed, however, were the banditti to anything like 
 law, that in some cases they seem to have looked 
 upon the advent of the king as a friendly visit ! Piers 
 Cockburn, of Sunderland, it is said, had prepared a 
 feast for the entertainment of his brother-monarch ; 
 
 * It may seem strange that the weights and measures of Caithness 
 should have become the standards of the whole kingdom, in the four- 
 teenth century; but the town of Thurso was at that period the great 
 depot between Scotland and the north of continental Europe. The sta- 
 tute of King David II., for the equalization of weights and measures, 
 quotes the twenty-fifth chapter of Deuteronomy, thirteenth and fourteenth 
 verses, in justification of the measure, and then provides—" Gif ony man, 
 against the commands of God's law, use ony unequal weights, he sail 
 pay to the King's Justice aught kye for his fault and transgression." 
 
LAIRD OF BALLENGEICH. 
 
 40 
 
 but, according to another tradition, was found by 
 him at dinner. A message, saying that a gentleman 
 requested to speak with him, was disregarded ; and 
 so was a second, couched in more urgent terms. On 
 the third, Cockburn, amazed at the audacious im- 
 portunity, swore he would not move till he had 
 finished his meal, were the visiter the Laird of 
 Ballengeich himself. 
 
 " It is the Laird," said the messenger ; and at the 
 words of fate the borderer rose up stupified, and 
 went out; when he was instantaneously hung up 
 before his own gate. 
 
 Adam Scott, of Tushielaw, met with the same 
 fate. This renowned freebooter, who was called the 
 king of the borders, was executed on an elm, used by 
 himself as a gallows-tree, and still growing upon the 
 ruins of his fortress, exhibits numerous marks of 
 the rope. 
 
 Johnnie Armstrong, however, was the most inter- 
 esting victim on this occasion. He came out from 
 his tower of Gilnorckie, in Eskdale, attended by a 
 train of knights, all gaily and gallantly dressed and 
 armed, and confident that they would meet with 
 nothing but favour from the king. James, however, 
 was rather irritated than otherwise by the bravery 
 of their appearance, and ordered them all without 
 ceremony to the gallows-tree. In vain Johnnie 
 offered to maintain forty men in the royal service ; 
 and to be ready at all times to bring to the king's 
 feet, alive or dead, within a given space, any Eng- 
 lishman, of any rank, he might designate. All his 
 
 F 
 
50 
 
 CHARACTER OF JAMES. 
 
 terms were rejected: and at length, ashamed of 
 having condescended to supplication, the stout 
 riever resigned himself to his fate ; remarking, that 
 had he suspected the result of that meeting, he 
 would have kept himself upon the borders, in spite 
 of the kings of both countries. He was hanged, 
 with his comrades, amounting to thirty-six, upon 
 the nearest trees, and their graves are still to be 
 seen in a church-yard near Carlenrig. 
 
 This severity of the king was not entirely dictated 
 by his English policy. Had the border chiefs been 
 less powerful they might have escaped ; but James 
 was intensely jealous of his authority. His whole 
 life was passed in attempts to humble the nobles ; 
 and at length, when in spite of his apparent success, 
 he became convinced of his real insignificance, he 
 died of shame and despair. He possessed authority 
 sufficient to bring his barons to the field, against an 
 English invasion ; but when an opportunity offered 
 of attacking the enemy successfully in their retreat, 
 they refused disdainfully to advance a step beyond 
 the limits of their own country. On another occa- 
 sion, when the nobles were actually prevailed upon 
 to enter England, his hatred and jealousy of their 
 power was so great, that he had the imprudence to 
 give the command of the army, consisting of ten 
 thousand men, to his favourite Oliver Sinclair. The 
 .consequence was, that, when attacked by five hun- 
 dred English, his whole forces took to flight : thirty 
 were killed, and a thousand surrendered prisoners 
 without striking a blow. James never afterwards 
 
BORDER THIEVES. 
 
 51 
 
 raised his head ; and it is even said by some histo- 
 rians that poison, administered by his own hand, 
 hastened the effects of melancholy and despair. 
 
 After his death the <c Border Thieves " waxed as 
 strong as ever, and Queen Mary sent round another 
 murderous circuit. The force necessary this time to 
 put into execution the decision of the court con- 
 sisted of the inhabitants of eleven counties. The 
 words of the proclamation, as given by Keith, are 
 these : 
 
 " And because it is necessary for the execution of 
 her highness' commandments and service, that her 
 justice be well accompanied, and her authority suffi- 
 ciently fortified by the concurrence of a good power 
 of her faithful subjects — Therefore commands and 
 charges all and sundry earls, lords, barons, free- 
 holders, landed-men, and other gentlemen dwelling 
 within the said counties, that they and every one of 
 them, with their kin, friends, servants, and house- 
 hold men, will bodin in feir of war in the most 
 substantious manner, and with twenty days' victuals, 
 to meet and to pass forward with him to the borough 
 of Jedburgh, and there to remain during the said 
 space of twenty days, and to receive such direction 
 and commands as shall be given by him to them in 
 our sovereign lady's name, for quietness of the 
 country ; and to put the same in execution, under 
 pain of losing life, lands, and goods." 
 
 After the union of the two crowns, the borderers, 
 losing the pretext of national hostility, were no 
 longer on the same respectable footing; although 
 
52 
 
 MOSS-TROOPERS. 
 
 they still continued in great numbers. Fuller des- 
 cribes the moss-troopers as robbers descended from 
 the more honourable borderers. "When England 
 and Scotland," says he, "were united in Great 
 Britain, they that formerly lived by hostile incur- 
 sions betook themselves to the robbing of their 
 neighbours." They dwelt in the mosses, and rode 
 in troops together, obeying the laws of neither coun- 
 try ; and therefore, he opines, they might be lawfully 
 put to death without legal ceremony — " wearing," ac- 
 cording to the words of Bracton, "a wolf's head, 
 so that they may be destroyed, without any judicial 
 inquisition, as who carry their own condemnation 
 about them, and deservedly die without law, because 
 they refuse to live according to law." Scott informs 
 us, that the last public mention of moss-troopers 
 occurs during the civil wars of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, when many ordinances of parliament were 
 directed against them. 
 
 The cause of these desperate men being enabled 
 so long to set at defiance the laws of the united 
 kingdom, is significantly told in the few and simple 
 words of Fuller: "They are a nest of hornets — 
 strike one, and stir all of them about your ears." 
 Their modes of intercommunication, in so wild and 
 thinly peopled a country, seem almost miraculous. 
 No sooner was the blow of authority, however sud- 
 jden, felt in one quarter, than the whole border was 
 in a tumult, and many hundred armed troopers 
 appeared spurring to the 'spot from all points of 
 the compass. 
 
BEACON FIRES. 
 
 53 
 
 In Carey's Memoirs, he tells us that he went to a 
 house within five miles of Carlisle, accompanied by 
 twenty-five horsemen, to apprehend two Scots who 
 had slain a priest. The fugitives, however, had 
 escaped into a tower close by ; and Carey, afraid to 
 venture with so small a party, although thinking 
 himself quite secure of his prey, despatched messen- 
 gers to "raise the country," including the townsmen 
 of Carlisle. Allies accordingly came, as fast as 
 legs either of man or beast could carry, and the 
 tower was speedily surrounded by a considerable 
 force both on foot and horseback. At the same 
 instant, however, there appeared dashing down the 
 hills to the rescue a troop of four hundred Scots. 
 This phenomenon was at once accounted for by their 
 having observed, on their arrival, a single boy scour- 
 ing away on horseback from the solitary tower. 
 
 In earlier times a message from the borders was 
 told all over Scotland in a still shorter space. A 
 bale of fire, kindled on the peak of a hill, or on the 
 tower of some mountain fastness, notified the sus- 
 pected approach of the English ; two bales the cer- 
 tainty of their coming ; and four bales that the 
 enemy were in formidable force. This blaze, lighted 
 at Hume, was instantaneously answered by one at 
 Eggerstone castle, and the latter by another on Soltra 
 Edge. The Lothians were thus warned — Edinburgh 
 Dunbar — Stirling — Fife — "that all might see, and 
 come to the defence of the realm." 
 
 During the last war, when this country was threat- 
 ened with a French invasion, some of these beacons 
 f 3 
 
WHA DAUR MEDDLE WI ME ? 
 
 were again called into use,, although only by mistake. 
 The beacon of Hownamlaw in Roxburghshire, un- 
 accustomed for so long a time to such matters, ima- 
 gined that the festive illumination of a house near 
 Dunse was the beacon of Dunselaw, and instanta- 
 neously flared up in the old border spirit. Dunse- 
 law, in turn, although it had not given the signal, 
 was not slow in replying ; and thus blaze after blaze 
 rose like ominous meteors on the night, till, in the 
 course of a few hours, a great part of the South of 
 Scotland was in arms. Some mistakes, no doubt 
 occurred. The yeomanry of Berwickshire gallopped 
 into East Lothian, and the East Lothian yeomanry 
 dashed headlong into Berwickshire. No matter. The 
 only thing wanting was the enemy. All was zeal, 
 noise, and animation, and the flashing of eyes and 
 arms. The old spirit of the Scots seemed to start 
 from its peaceful slumbers with a shout ; and ere the 
 sun had well risen over the mountain borders, the 
 Teviotdale yeomanry marched into Jedburgh, playing 
 " Wha daur meddle wi me?" 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 And far beneath, in lustre wan, 
 Old Melros' rose, and fair Tweed ran : 
 Like some tall rock, with lichens grey, 
 Rose, dimly huge, the dark abbaye. 
 
 The Tweed is only in a portion of its course a 
 boundary river. It wanders in its whole course over 
 a space of one hundred and two miles,, (falling on 
 an average about fifteen feet in the mile.,) and ap- 
 proaches, at the town of Peebles, to within twenty 
 miles of the metropolis. This range includes every 
 variety of scenery of which Scotland can boast ; and 
 in some places the views are not excelled, either 
 in beauty or grandeur, by any other part of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 On either side of the river, disposed alternately, 
 and within sight of each other, stood the famous 
 border towers, which raised the whole country in 
 arms in the course of a few hours. In the day time 
 a column of smoke rising from the beacon flame 
 
56 
 
 ABBEY OP MELROSE. 
 
 gave the signal; at night the blaze of the fires 
 flashing suddenly up, one after another, roused the 
 hardy Scot at a hundred miles distance with the 
 news that the Southrons had crossed the border. 
 
 In the very midst of this wild country, where the 
 traveller, surrounded by ruins, and haunted by the 
 shapes of the past, is hardly yet certain that he is 
 in absolute safety, an object suddenly rises before 
 his eyes, so incongruous with the rude and troubled 
 scene, that he is half inclined to attribute its appear- 
 ance there to the agency of enchantment. This is 
 the famous abbey of Melrose, one of the most ex- 
 quisite specimens of Gothic sculpture — for it seems 
 actually a work of the chisel throughout — in all 
 Europe. 
 
 The foundation of this monastery is generally 
 attributed to David I. ; but the rich and fantastic 
 luxuriance of the work in the ruins now remaining, 
 (which are those of the church,) would by no means 
 seem to indicate a date so early as the middle of the 
 twelfth century. The probability is that it was con- 
 structed at different epochs ; and the western extre- 
 mity we know by a scutcheon of his arms, which it 
 contains, was built by James V. The meanness of 
 this portion of the building presents a striking con- 
 trast with the gorgeous yet elegant magnificence of 
 the rest. Perhaps all that is really worthy of admi- 
 ration was executed under the comparatively peace- 
 able reigns of Alexander II. and III. In their time 
 the Gothic order was at its highest ; and after them 
 no Scottish king had either means or leisure to enter 
 into such an undertaking. 
 
LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL. 
 
 57 
 
 The description in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, 
 understood not poetically but literally, gives a closer 
 and better idea of the place than can be found 
 elsewhere in the plainest prose. 
 
 Now slow and faint he led the way, 
 
 Where, cloister'd round, the garden lay ; 
 
 The pillared arches were over their head, 
 
 And beneath their feet were the bones of the dead. 
 
 Spreading herbs and flowerets bright 
 
 Glistened with the dew of night ; 
 
 Nor herb nor floweret glisten'd there, 
 
 But were carv'd in the cloister'd arches as fair * 
 
 By a steel-clench'd postern door, 
 
 They enter now the chancel tall ; 
 
 The darken'd roof rose high aloof 
 
 On pillars lofty, and light, and small : 
 
 The key-stone that lock'd each ribbed aisle 
 
 Was a fleur-de-lis or a quatre-feuille ; 
 
 The corbells were carv'd grotesque and grim, 
 
 And the pillars with clustered shafts so trim, 
 
 With base and with capital flourished around, 
 
 Seem'd bundles of lances which garlands had bound. 
 
 The moon on the east oriel shone, 
 Through slender shafts of shapely stone, 
 
 By foliag'd tracery combin'd ; 
 Thou wouldst have thought some fairy's hand 
 'Twixt poplars straight the osier wand, 
 
 In many a freakish wreath had twin'd ; 
 Then framed a spell when the work was done, 
 And changed the willow wreaths to stone. 
 
 * " Nature," says a Southron author in 1776, " is studied throughout the 
 whole, and the flowers and plants are represented as accurately as under 
 the pencil." 
 
58 
 
 ANCIENT TOMBS. 
 
 The tomb of Michael Scott is supposed to have 
 been in the chancel, but the exact spot cannot be 
 pointed out. The curious traveller, however, may 
 still see the " marble stone" where William of Delo- 
 raine sat down with the monk. It is said to cover 
 the tomb of Alexander II., and to have formerly 
 contained the following inscription, now utterly 
 defaced. 
 
 Rex rectus, rigidns, sapiens, consultus, honestus ; 
 Rex pius, rex fortis, rex optimus, rex opulentus, 
 Nominis istius ipse secundus erat. 
 Annis ter denis et quinis rex fuit ipse, 
 Insula quee carneri dicitur nunc rapuit. 
 Spiritus alta petit, coelestibus associatus, 
 Sefl lelrossensis ossa sepulta tenet. 
 
 Several of the family of Douglas were also buried 
 there — the "gallant chief of Otterburne," and the 
 "dark knight of Liddesdale ;" the latter styled the 
 flower of chivalry, and described in the chronicle of 
 the Douglases as "terrible and fearful in arms, 
 meek, mild, and gentle in peace, the scourge of 
 England, and sure buckler and wall of Scotland, 
 whom neither hard service could make slack, nor 
 prosperous slothful." 
 
 The tomb of Waldevus, the second abbot, is still 
 seen. According to the Chronicle of Mailross when 
 Ingerion, bishop of Glasgow came, accompanied by 
 four other dignitaries, to open the grave — 
 
 Before their eyes the abbot lay, 
 As if he had not been dead a day ! 
 
 This is the origin of the exquisite picture in the 
 Lay of the Last Minstrel : but the same thing may 
 
DESTRUCTION OP THE ABBEY. 59 
 
 be observed throughout the whole of the writings 
 of Scott. His incidents and characters are true, 
 according to place and time ; he is not so much a 
 romancer as a historian of manners. 
 
 The abbots of Melrose enjoyed such extraordinary 
 power that James V., in his murderous expedition 
 to the borderers, is said by some authors to have 
 assumed the title of their baron baillie, in order to 
 shelter himself under their warrant from a respon- 
 sibility which he dreaded to undertake in his mere 
 office of king ! 
 
 The situation of the abbey, notwithstanding, 
 would finally have proved its destruction, indepen- 
 dently of the revolution in religion. It is not to be 
 supposed that the wild moss-troopers would have 
 been withheld from so rich a prize by regard either 
 to the beauty of the edifice or the sanctity of its 
 priests ; and, accordingly, it was sacked by the 
 English borderers on more than one occasion. But 
 the time at last came when this most beautiful mo- 
 nument of Scotland was doomed to utter destruction 
 by an act of a Scottish council ; and Knox added 
 to the zeal of the ignorant and ferocious brutes, by 
 publicly inculcating in his sermons that "the sure 
 way to banish the rooks was to pull down their 
 nests." 
 
 Behold the scene which ensued in the interior of 
 the church ! 
 
 " Magdalen and Richard Graeme remained alone 
 in the great vaulted space, whose style of rich yet 
 chaste architecture referred its origin to the early 
 
60 
 
 CURIOUS LETTER. 
 
 part of the fourteenth century, the best period of 
 Gothic building.* But the niches were stripped of 
 their images in the inside as well as on the outside 
 of the church ; and in the pell-mell havoc the 
 tombs of warriors and princes had been included in 
 the demolition of the idolatrous shrines. Lances 
 and swords of antique size, which had hung over the 
 tombs of mighty warriors of former days, lay now 
 strewed among the relics with which the devotion of 
 pilgrims had graced those of their peculiar saints ; 
 and the fragments of the knights and dames which 
 had once lain recumbent, or kneeled in an attitude 
 of devotion where their mortal relics reposed, were 
 mingled with those of saints and angels of the 
 gothic chisel, which the hand of violence had sent 
 headlong from their station." 
 
 In 1742 an Englishman endeavoured to direct the 
 attention of antiquarians to this remarkable spot ; 
 and his letter is so curious that I believe I shall be 
 excused for giving it almost entire. 
 
 " I could heartily wish that some judicious brother 
 of your Antiquarian Society was but to see a gothic 
 rarity that is in this neighbourhood, (viz.) the beau- 
 teous ruins of the abbey of Mailross, which I shall 
 take upon me to say has been the most exquisite 
 structure of its kind in either kingdom : I won't 
 say but other abbeys have been larger, such as St. 
 Albans ; and some conventual churches more august, 
 
 * With great deference I think this is impossible. No one can suppose 
 that Robert Bruce had time or opportunity for such a work, and under 
 David II. the whole country was one battle field. 
 
SCULPTURES OF MELROSE. 
 
 61 
 
 such as Beverley ; but this of Mailross is extrava- 
 gantly rich in its imagery, niches, and all sorts of 
 carving, by the best hands that Europe could pro- 
 duce at that time; nay, there is such a profusion of 
 nice chisel work, in foliage and flowers, at the very 
 top of the steeple, that it cannot be seen from the 
 ground without the help of a glass. The capital of 
 every pillar that supports the arches of the church 
 and the dome are all hollowed with a small tool, 
 being wreathed work of all sorts of flowers, such as 
 you have at the entrance of your chapter house at 
 York. Every brother has had a stall in the cloister 
 (now much demolished,) which have been variously 
 adorned with the leaves of fern, oak, palm, holly, 
 or some other kind of trees. 
 
 The building from the steeple to the east end is 
 entire in the walls, but the roof (which has been of 
 stone and carved ) is much decayed. 
 
 The quire is but small, but has a noble east win- 
 dow, the glass all out ; therein lies a marble stone 
 without any inscription, half a hexagon, tapering 
 smaller at the foot, of a bright green colour, and 
 powdered full of white feathers. 
 
 The whole structure is in the form of a Saint 
 John of J erusalem's cross, the north and south aisles 
 partly complete ; at the north side of which is a 
 staircase which has led into the prior's house. 
 
 From the steeple westward remain six arches of 
 the nave, in which is the present kirk, that takes up 
 about three of them ; but how much farther the 
 ancient church has extended I believe will be hard 
 to know. G 
 
EILDON HILLS. 
 
 In every arch of the nave, both north and south, 
 has rose a cross wall into the two sister aisles, 
 making so many smaller arches, with an altar and 
 holy water font. 
 
 The windows are of an equal dimension, but va- 
 riously figured and carved. 
 
 The cloister has been on the north side of the 
 church, which opened into a garden, that led to the 
 Tweed, which is there of a good breadth ; and there 
 was another garden on the opposite side of the river. 
 Our neighbours are not wanting in the faculty of 
 amplifying, but this thing does really exceed all their 
 exaggerations of praise. By this you'll swear, and 
 say I have lived too long here, and am become as 
 vain as they ; however, I stand to my assertion." 
 
 To the south of Melrose are the Eildon hills, 
 about six or seven miles at the base, and a mile and 
 a half in height. The reader is no doubt aware that 
 these hills, or rather that this triple hill, owes its 
 form to the wizard Michael Scott ; who being embar- 
 rassed by a fiend, whom it was necessary to keep 
 in constant employment, spoke 
 
 " the words that cleft Eildon hills in three." 
 
 These words, unhappily, were not communi- 
 cated by the monk to William of Deloraine, and 
 - therefore they have not come down ; but the man- 
 ner in which the fiend executed the behest is 
 minutely described in tradition. Facing to the 
 north, it seems, he decapitated the hill at a single 
 
DALE OF THE ALLAN. 
 
 slice, throwing the spoil to the right ; this made two 
 cones, and there remained enough in his spade, when 
 shaken between, to form the third. When looking 
 at the Eildon from a proper point of view, one can 
 easily understand how this was done ; and the sen- 
 sitive traveller will feel regret to think that so prompt 
 and ingenious a workman should be employed to this 
 day by the artifice of the wizard, "in the hopeless 
 and endless task of making ropes out of sea-sand." 
 
 Approaching Peebles by the Tweed, the country 
 on a general view, has a wild and chaotic appear- 
 ance ; but on looking closer we behold — to borrow 
 the grandiloquence of a traveller — " fertile valleys 
 beautifully diversified with verdant hills, richly 
 fringed with flowing springs, that filter through the 
 concavities of an irregular surface to the bosom of 
 their common mother Tweed, whose meandering 
 stream lulls their vibrated rills to rest, and consigns 
 her sylphic young to the briny regions of Neptune I" 
 
 An excellent idea of the wild and desolate aspect 
 of the country is given in the opposite engraving. 
 The scene is in the dale of the Allan near Melrose, 
 and includes the identical spot where the sub-prior 
 was overtaken by Christie of the Clinthill. The ad- 
 venture of father Philip with the weeping lady 
 occurred, according to tradition, at Gattonside, on the 
 opposite side of the Tweed ; and the hero was not 
 a monk, but a worthy man spurring across the ford 
 to Melrose, to beseech the aid of a "wise woman" on 
 behalf of his wife. He found a female sitting on 
 the bank of the stream, and acted precisely as is 
 
04 
 
 RIDING DOUBLE. 
 
 related of father Philip, and no doubt from the same 
 holy motive. 
 
 When almost half way over, with the lady seated 
 behind him, he became alarmed by the firm and de- 
 liberate grasp she appeared to have taken of his 
 belt. He began to dread something uncanny, he 
 knew not what ; but, unbuckling the thong to which 
 his companion seemed to have taken such a fancy, 
 he held the ends in his hand, and left the affair to 
 providence. His presence of mind, if not his piety, 
 saved him from destruction ; for they had no sooner 
 gained the deepest part of the stream than the false 
 fiend threw herself from the horse — not with the 
 rider in her grasp, but only his belt ; and a succession 
 of eldritch screams told her disappointment as she 
 whirled down the stream and disappeared. 
 
 The beacon towers or castles in this part of the 
 country were usually elevated to three stories. The 
 lowest, or ground floor, was vaulted, and there the 
 cattle were driven on the first alarm of the enemy's 
 approach. The second story consisted chiefly of a 
 great public hall, and the third contained the bed 
 chambers and other apartments of the family. Of 
 these structures, the one in best preservation is Neid- 
 path castle, near Peebles ; but having been used as 
 the residence of noble families in comparatively late 
 times, it does not completely answer the above de- 
 scription. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Oh, lover's eyes are sharp to see, 
 
 And lover's ears in hearing; 
 And love, in life's extremity, 
 
 Can lend an honr of cheering. 
 
 The sides of the deep and narrow glen in which 
 Neidpath castle stands were formerly covered with 
 wood ; and the broken outline of the ridges which 
 hemmed it in from the world, shewed as gloomily 
 against the sky as the ramparts of a prison. Even in 
 our own time, when fields of corn are seen waving 
 in places where the black fir and the haunted rowan 
 tree kept sentry, and when flocks of sheep pasture 
 in safety on the heretofore domains of the hill fox 
 and the raven, there still lingers around the scene 
 an air of sternness and almost menace. 
 
 The massive walls of the castle rise, in the form 
 of a single square tower, from a promontory of rock 
 which overhangs the Tweed; and although aban- 
 doned many years ago to ruin and desolation, they 
 g 3 
 
66 
 
 LADY ALICE. 
 
 still withstand proudly the ravages of time. Birds 
 build, indeed, in the cavities of the roof, and the 
 wind howls through the remains of the out-houses ; 
 the court-yard is fast disappearing, and the stately 
 avenue, with its orchards on one side, and the terrace 
 garden on the other, are already gone : but the walls 
 of the tower itself, eleven feet in thickness, remain 
 a lasting monument of the military architecture of 
 Scotland in the middle ages. 
 
 About the close of the seventeenth or beginning 
 of the eighteenth century, the castle was in the pos- 
 session of the Earl of March, one of the Queensberry 
 family. This nobleman, who inherited no small 
 portion of the pride and rapacity of the first duke, 
 was but little liked in the countryside, and rarely 
 visited his mansion in the neighbouring town of 
 Peebles. He lived at Neidpath in a state of almost 
 seclusion, with little other society (his wife being 
 dead) than that of his two daughters; and one of 
 these, the elder and the favourite, being in a declin- 
 ing state of health, it may be supposed that the 
 outward gloom of the castle was not much amended 
 by cheerfulness within. 
 
 The age of the lady Alice had reached the last 
 of the silver-sounding numerals. Her years of 
 romance, therefore, were well-nigh over, — and she 
 awaited the pronouncing of the abrupt and prosaic 
 -word "twenty," to close, as with a spell, the en- 
 chanted series. In the meantime, there were some 
 fears that, short as the interval was, she might not 
 live so long. By a few, her illness was called con- 
 
LOVE MELANCHOLY. 
 
 67 
 
 sumption : by her sister, it was pronounced to be a 
 love-melancholy. 
 
 The former of these opinions appeared to have 
 most reason. Her complexion, always pale, was 
 now absolutely colourless ; there was not a tinge of 
 blood even on her lip ; and had it not been for the 
 exquisite beauty and delicacy of the features, her 
 face must have conveyed some idea of the ghastly. 
 As it was, she resembled a statue of that almost 
 transparent marble of Paros, by means of which the 
 ancient sculptors were enabled to embody the god- 
 dess-women of their dreams. Her voice was weak 
 and broken, her step languid, and her breathing 
 quick. Her appetite was gone ; her eyes became 
 suffused with tears at the slightest reproach from 
 those she loved ; and a sudden step, or an abrupt 
 question, no matter on how indifferent a subject, 
 made the far-hidden blood leap to her face. 
 
 At the same time, if consumption was the proxi- 
 mate cause of these symptoms, there is no doubt 
 that her health was first undermined by disappointed 
 love. Some people smile when this is talked of as 
 if it were a disease : — they forget that the case is 
 the same with all the other passions. There have 
 been instances of men dying even of fear — no every 
 day tenant of the manly breast — and why should 
 not a woman die of love ? 
 
 The maternal ancestors of the lady Alice were 
 not natives of the vale of Tweed. She was come 
 of an old border race, who still kept their footing on 
 the " wild and willow ed shore " of the Teviot ; and 
 
68 
 
 HISTORY OF LOVE. 
 
 till lately she had been accustomed to go more than 
 once in the year to visit her family. On these occa- 
 sions she had usually found her path beset, as she 
 passed through Ettrick forest, by young Scott, the 
 son of the laird of Tushielaw ; and Alice, while yet 
 a wee lassie was wont to clap her hands, and scream 
 with delight, as she caught the first glimpse of the 
 high-spirited, frank-hearted boy, urging his steed 
 down the pass to meet her. He was either a kins- 
 man of her house, or some hereditary alliance had 
 subsisted between the two families ; and at an early 
 age the descendant of the border kins; condescended 
 to fix upon this Tweeddale damsel for his future 
 wife. 
 
 As Alice grew older she left off clapping her hands 
 at the sight of young Tushielaw. The pace of her 
 palfrey was slower; she started and flushed as a 
 wild bird burst out of the foliage by her side ; and 
 her eyes wandered timidly around, as if she dreaded 
 the approach of an enemy. When at length they 
 met, her air was shy and embarrassed. She looked 
 little, spoke less, and ever and anon turned away 
 her head to pluck a blossom from the bough that 
 overhung her path. Her hesitating words, notwith- 
 standing, were even softer than usual; her cast- 
 down eyes swam in a bashful joy ; and her averted 
 cheek glowed with that rich and genial warmth 
 which was the only appliance of beauty she did not 
 naturally possess. 
 
 In another year these symptoms passed away in 
 turn. She no longer checked the spirit of her pal- 
 
BEAUTY. 
 
 69 
 
 frey, but,, as if impatient at his slowness, seemed 
 ready herself to bound out of the saddle. Her 
 face glowed with beauty; her eyes shone with 
 sparkling light ; her very frame seemed to dilate, 
 her muscles to expand, and her whole being to 
 swell, as it were, with an excess of spiritual life. 
 The looks of the youthful pair now met in mutual 
 confidence. They were lovers. But they were not 
 the lovers of the drawing room, or the library, or 
 the lawn. They gallopped, side by side, through 
 the "forest free their warm cheeks were fanned 
 by the breezes of the mountain ; and the first fate- 
 ful whisper of young Scott sunk into the ear of 
 Alice, by the side of a nameless tarn, where the 
 eagle stopped to drink on his way to the highlands 
 of Ettrick Kirk, or St. Mary's Loch. 
 
 Tradition delights to record the appearance of the 
 youthful pair at this time. If its tales are to be 
 believed, they were perfect models of beauty ac- 
 cording to sex. The preference, however, seems 
 to be given, by the taste of the narrators to Scott ; 
 whose tall and robust person, together with his proud 
 bearing, and the flash of a dark but lustrous eye, 
 perhaps connected him in their imagination, with 
 his ancestor, the famous King of the Borders, who 
 was executed by James V. Alice, on the other hand, 
 was the perfect essence and extract of womankind. 
 Firm without energy, a coward in action, yet a 
 heroine in endurance, she seemed to be one who, if 
 overtaken by a tempest on some journey of love or 
 honour, would sit down by the way-side, and wait, 
 
70 
 
 PARTING OF THE LOVERS. 
 
 and bear, and die — without the courage to go on, 
 without the baseness to turn back. They both, in 
 some respects carried the peculiarities of sex to a 
 pitch of extravagance ; he being stronger in manly 
 pride than became a man, and she softer in woman's 
 weakness than became a woman. 
 
 It is not known on what occasion the Earl of 
 March thought himself called upon to interfere ; or 
 what were the circumstances which suggested to the 
 lovers that the laird of Tushielaw was no longer 
 king of the borders, and that the lady Alice was the 
 daughter of the heir of Queensberry. The eyes of 
 all parties were perhaps gradually opened ; difficul- 
 ties may have grown up insensibly in the intercourse 
 of the young pair ; doubts and jealousies may have 
 insinuated themselves into the heart of Scott ; his 
 love may have been hurt, his pride alarmed : — but 
 all this is only conjecture. We only know that 
 the rambles of Alice were at length confined to the 
 garden of Neidpath ; and that, after a scene of 
 confusion, and almost strife, in the family of 
 Tushielaw, young Scott, after the manner of his 
 country, buckled on his sword with a bursting 
 heart, and went abroad. 
 
 From that day the lily of the vale of Tweed be- 
 gan to wither. There were no prayers, no shrieks, 
 no hysterics. Her father, she was well aware, in the 
 midst of all his severity, loved her to absolute idola- 
 try. He reasoned with her calmly, yet anxiously, 
 and explained the relative stations and duties of the 
 different grades of society. Alice listened without 
 
WITHERED FLOWER. 
 
 71 
 
 replying ; for although the wisdom of a man of the 
 world is foolishness to a young and sensitive heart, 
 she knew that reply would be useless. She retired 
 to her chamber to try to tranquillize her bosom and 
 steady her brain ; she wandered in the garden, trim- 
 ming her plants as usual, and watering her flowers ; 
 she sat down to reading, or drawing,or embroidering, 
 with her sister : but all this was soon, though gradu- 
 ally at an end. 
 
 Walking began to fatigue her, and she kept within 
 doors ; at drawing or needle- work, her eyes wan- 
 dered, and these were laid aside ; reading perplexed 
 without amusing her, for she forgot the connection 
 of the sentences, and the book was closed. Her 
 form lost its roundness ; her cheek grew paler and 
 paler ; the bones of her taper fingers were seen 
 white and smooth beneath the white smooth skin 
 that covered them. Her eye, however, was still 
 bright, and the hue which any sudden emotion cast 
 into her cheek was beautiful beyond expression. 
 Her face besides, when her father was present, was 
 lighted up with a smile, at first constrained, then 
 habitual. It was wan indeed, both sad and wan — 
 still it was a smile. 
 
 " She will forget him," said the earl ; "she begins 
 to smile already V 
 
 Then a cough supervened ; she could not sleep at 
 night for coughing. She had caught cold ! — and the 
 doctors must be consulted. The doctors did all that 
 doctors can ; and when they could do no more, they 
 recommended change of air — mineral waters — 
 
72 
 
 THE FATHER RELENTS. 
 
 amusement. And so the patient was carried into 
 other provinces, and drank ill-tasted water, and 
 smiled wanly to show that she was amused: and 
 then she came back to Neidpath, and grew worse, 
 and worse, and worse. 
 
 "What do you think of this ?" said the earl to his 
 younger daughter, in growing alarm. 
 
 "What I did at first, father," replied she— "that 
 she has not forgotten him, and never will." 
 
 "It is hard," mused the heir of Queensberry when 
 alone — "very — very hard ! she who might have 
 matched into the first family in the land, must 
 marry young Scott of Tushielaw, or die ! Yes ; I 
 will try but one other physician, and one other 
 month. Poor lassie ! — there she comes, leaning on 
 her sister's arm — how thin, and wan, and wasted ! 
 Not a day beyond the month — not an hour, by all 
 that is holy ! " 
 
 As Alice passed through the room, she turned 
 round, seeing her father, and smiled. The earl was 
 more struck with the peculiarity of her expression 
 than he had ever been before ; and he made a hasty 
 step forward in alarm, and fruitless compunction. 
 The sudden motion sent the blood into the poor 
 girl's face ; but, retreating instantaneously, the light 
 of beauty was gone, leaving nothing behind on the 
 same features but a beauty resembling that of death, 
 and the late, lasting, heavenly smile of a daughter's 
 love. 
 
 The earl hid his face with one hand, while he 
 extended the other towards her. 
 
EFFECT OF ABRUPTNESS. 
 
 73 
 
 " Alice ! " said he, in a broken and husky voice. 
 She left her sister's arm, stepped quickly up to him, 
 and kissed his hand. He took hold of both her's, 
 and looked long and wildly in her face ; scanning, 
 one by one, the wasted features — the hollow cheek 
 — the sunken eye — the bloodless lip. He then 
 drew her close to his bosom, leant his head upon 
 her shoulder, and, after a short but fierce struggle 
 with the sobs that convulsed him, wept aloud. 
 
 " My Alice," said he, when he was able to speak, 
 " will you try to live ? " 
 
 " Indeed, indeed, I will," she replied ; ** I will do 
 any thing I can, dear father, so that you are not 
 vexed with me." 
 
 " And I will do what / can to make it no hard- 
 ship for you to live ! " But the strange stare which 
 she fixed on his face at these words made him ap- 
 prehend that he was too sudden. She grew paler 
 than ever, and appeared to be about to faint ; but 
 when he had set her gently down in a chair, a re- 
 action took place, and the banished blood rushed 
 back into her face, neck, and bosom, lending a 
 crimson shade even to her sparkling eyes. For 
 some moments she looked better and more beautiful 
 than ever ; and her father continued, impatiently — 
 
 "I set out this very day — this very hour — for 
 Tushielaw ; young Scott shall be recalled ; your 
 early vows, imprudent as they were, shall be ful- 
 filled ; and we shall all be happy yet — if you will 
 only promise to live ! Promise that, my darling ! 
 promise, image of your mother ! promise, my own 
 
 H 
 
71 
 
 AMENDMENT OF HEALTH, 
 
 Alice ! promise, my beautiful love ! — "and the father 
 sunk upon his knees before his daughter. 
 
 " I do ! I do ! " she almost screamed. " Rise, 
 my father ! I will pray to God that I may live, and 
 he will hear me ! I think — I know — I feel — I am 
 sure that I shall live ! " The earl kissed her fore- 
 head, and before Alice had time to arrange her 
 fluttered thoughts, was far up the glen on his way 
 to Ettrick Forest. 
 
 The young lady, as the tradition bears, did really 
 amend in health. She was more cheerful ; her 
 nerves grew stronger ; even the violence of her 
 cough diminished ; and as her sleep became sounder, 
 her dreams became more agreeable. As the day of 
 her lover's return, however, approached, she seemed 
 so restless, that her sister dreaded fever, even from 
 so natural a cause. At every unaccustomed sound, 
 however slight or distant, she started, and either 
 crimsoned to the eyes, or grew deadly pale. Her 
 eyes at length acquired an uninterrupted brilliance, 
 and her cheek wore a hue of beauty too bright to be 
 in keeping with her general health. Nevertheless, 
 she was certainly better. Care, and rest, and the 
 presence of her beloved, and the tranquillity of 
 mind which would ensue, when fear and hope re- 
 solved into certainty — these, with the blessing of 
 heaven, would in all probability redeem her young 
 rife from the grave. 
 
 At length the day came, the morning of the day, 
 when young Scott was expected to pass through the 
 town of Peebles, on his way to Neidpath. Alice 
 
RESTLESSNESS. 
 
 75 
 
 was up with the dawn. Her eyes were dazzlingly 
 bright, but she was even paler than usual, not hav- 
 ing slept the whole night; and this gave so wild 
 and unnatural a look to her marble-like face, that 
 her sister almost dreaded the approaching interview. 
 She, herself however, had no fear, but that her lover 
 would not come, or that having come, disgusted by the 
 traces of sickness, he would see in her no more the 
 Alice of his love. One while she would braid her 
 hair before the mirror, and arrange and re-arrange 
 her dress, — then, struck by a sudden thought, she 
 would pause in consternation ; the flowers and jewels 
 would drop from her hand ; and, with a feeble moan, 
 she would sink back fainting in her chair. 
 
 Inaction, however, seemed worse to her than any- 
 thing. Her restless eye never remained fixed on 
 any object for more than an instant ; she found a 
 thousand things to do, and continued flitting about, 
 like a spirit, from place to place. It seemed mar- 
 vellous how the excitement within could keep up so 
 long; the energies of her wasted frame : but instead 
 of fainting from weariness, her restlessness increased 
 as the day wore on. She at length declared sud- 
 denly that she would go to Peebles to meet him ; 
 and her sister, catching with eagerness at the girlish 
 whim, for the sake of the short drive, and the effect 
 it might have in amusing the thoughts of the invalid, 
 ordered the carriage at once. 
 
 When at length arrived at the castellated mansion 
 of the earl of March, in the High street of Peebles, 
 the two sisters took their stand in a balcony which 
 
76 
 
 MIRACULOUS POWER OF LOVE. 
 
 commanded a considerable extent of view along the 
 street. 
 
 Alice, fatigued with her short journey, leaned 
 upon the rails, fixing her eyes upon the distance ; 
 but gradually the intensity of her look diminished, 
 and she remained so long silent and motionless that 
 her sister thought she had fallen into that kind of 
 stupor which frequently succeeds the excitement of 
 fever. She endeavoured to draw her back into the 
 room ; but the invalid resisted. Her eyes gradually 
 kindled again, till they seemed to emit sparks of 
 light ; she threw back her hair impatiently from her 
 ears; and bending far over the balcony seemed to 
 <xaze with her whole soul. 
 
 o 
 
 " He comes! he comes!" she cried at length — 
 " Hush ! hark ! ** her sister listened, but hearing 
 nothing, entreated her to return into the room. 
 
 "I will not go — it is his gallop ! I would know 
 it amidst an army of horse ! " 
 
 "You are deceived, dear Alice ; it is the illusion 
 of fever." 
 
 u Silence, girl ! It is you who are mad — Hush ! 
 hark ! — There ! — Do you not hear ? " — and her sister 
 did actually hear the distant tramp of horses, which 
 before had been cognizable only to the ear of love. 
 
 " I knew it ! it is he himself ! " 
 
 " They are not yet in sight — " said her sister, 
 ^training her eyes with all her might. 
 
 " It is he, I tell you, and he rides his own gal- 
 lant grey ! " Tears gushed from her eyes, and her 
 whole frame trembled with emotion. 
 
• 
 
CATASTROPHE. 
 
 77 
 
 "There ! now lie nears us. See the fire flashing 
 from his horse's heels ! But now he slackens his 
 pace, as he gets into the throng of the town. He 
 comes ! he is here ! Hold me up, sister ! " 
 
 Young Scott pressed steadily forward. His heart 
 was in Neidpath castle ; and his eyes only rested 
 casually upon the elder of the ladies in the balcony. 
 Perhaps some secret sympathy, or unformed recol- 
 lection, gave more of interest to that momentary 
 glance than was due to a stranger. His heart, how- 
 ever, his thoughts, his longings, his whole soul — all 
 were in Neidpath castle. Wan and wasted as she 
 was, he did not — could not recognise her. He turned 
 away his head, without having slackened his pace. 
 He passed on. 
 
 At this sight a shriek of surprise and terror broke 
 from the sister's lips. For an instant she dared not 
 look at the effect it had produced upon Alice ; but 
 at length, on turning down her eyes, she saw that 
 this was precisely what might have been expected. 
 The single thread which had bound her to the world 
 had snapped. The young girl was dead. 
 
 Such is the tradition of the maid of Neidpath. 
 Mr. Cattermole, it will be seen, from the opposite 
 view, has followed Scott, in the ballad ; who makes 
 the young lady wait for her lover in the balcony of 
 the castle, and even make signals to him. By this 
 arrangement, however, the effect of the story is tost ; 
 for Tushielaw could hardly have avoided recognizing 
 her in such a place. 
 
 h 3 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 As little as the wind that blows, 
 Kens he, or cares, w hich way he goes. 
 
 It has been said in the preceding chapter, that 
 young Scott, of Tushielaw, after his love disap- 
 pointment, girded on his sword, and went abroad 
 after the custom of his country. 
 
 It is curious to find the most intense nationality, 
 and love of country, co-existing with an almost irre- 
 sistible longing after foreign travel. This contra- 
 diction has characterised the Scots, from the earliest 
 period of their history down to the present hour ; 
 and its origin, therefore, should be referred to some 
 peculiarity in the early customs or institutions of 
 the people. It is the fashion, I know, with the wits, 
 to dismiss the subject at once with a sneer at the 
 - poverty of Scotland ; but I, who lay no claim to wit, 
 am driven, as usual, to exert my industry. The 
 poverty of the country, it seems to me, can, at best, 
 be little more than an accessory ; from the simple 
 
WANDERINGS OF THE SCOTS. 
 
 79 
 
 fact , that a Scot will rather wander into a region 
 still poorer than his own, than remain all his life at 
 home.* 
 
 There are traces of these wandering strangers in 
 many of the earliest records of continental Europe, 
 after the fall of the Roman empire, and especially in 
 the statutes and capitulaires of the French kings of 
 the Carlovingian dynasty. Wherever we meet them, 
 however, their warlike habits remain in full force ; 
 and, down even to comparatively late times, they 
 are prized as the elite of the army, in whatever 
 country they may have pitched their tent. 
 
 We know that the manners and government of 
 the highlanders, or ancient Scots, remained the same 
 from the beginning of their recorded history, almost 
 to our own day; and the assumption, therefore, is 
 not unwarrantable, that they had been handed down 
 in like manner, from a much more remote period. 
 At the time of the final conquest of the Picts, by 
 Kenneth Mac Alpin, nearly the same social institu- 
 tions, it is probable, existed in Scotland, as were 
 found in full force, less than a century ago, in the 
 highlands ; the only effect of the introduction of the 
 feudal system, as I have surmised elsewhere, having 
 been not to change the habits of the people, but to 
 
 * " The Scots, from the earliest times, delighted so much in travelling 
 to different countries, that there was scarcely a kingdom wherein great 
 numbers of them were not to be found. — Du Cange. This peculiarity in 
 the nation is noticed hy Wilfridus Strabo, in the Life of Saint Gal ; 
 and the hospitals founded in France, for these wandering strangers, are 
 noticed in the capitulaires of Charles le Chauve." Note to the Romance 
 eff French History, vol. II. page 247. 
 
no 
 
 POWER OF THE CHIEFS. 
 
 fasten them down by law in their original mould. 
 At the former period, be it remembered, the Scots 
 were already in the middle, so to speak, of their 
 vagabond tours on continental Europe ; and so 
 numerous were they in France, in the same century 
 (the ninth), that we find a hospital instituted for 
 their reception by one of the capitulaires of Louis- 
 le-Chauve, grandson of Charlemagne. 
 
 We are thus enabled, by a similarity, or continua- 
 tion of effects, to arrive at causes which are beyond 
 the ken of history ; and, owing to the unvarying 
 transmission of manners and customs among the 
 mountain tribes, to reflect the light of modern ex- 
 perience upon the darkness of antiquity. 
 
 The chiefs of the Scottish clans were hereditary 
 princes, before they became feudal lords of the land, 
 and in both characters their privileges were the 
 same. They were the proprietors of the territory, 
 which they parcelled out, at pleasure, among their 
 relations and dependants.* A portion of the Land 
 was sometimes assigned in perpetuity, and the holder 
 of such fiefs, although still dependent and subordi- 
 
 * I do not understand the distinction that is generally made between 
 the " proprietorship" and "stewardship" of the chief. The very fact 
 of his granting fiefs in perpetuity to the chieftains, or sub-chiefs, seems 
 to prove that he was considered the original proprietor. The circum ■ 
 stance of the clan deposing their chief (which is not witbont example), 
 does not bear upon the question : this must be classed with political revo- 
 lutions in larger societies; and when it occurred with the consent, or 
 through the agency, of the immediate relations, there would be no pretext 
 for interference on the part of the neighbouring clans. Early in the six- 
 teenth century Stewart of Garth, was thus deposed by his own nearest 
 kinsmen, on account of the frantic ferocity of his disposition, and confined 
 for life in the family castle. 
 
VICISSITUDES OF FORTUNE. 
 
 nate, could never lose his rank of proprietor; in 
 addition to which, he was generally appointed to the 
 command of some subdivision of the clan, and 
 received the title of chieftain. 
 
 In general, however, the grants were limited, or 
 resumable at pleasure ; and in this case the tacksman 
 (or tenant), whose family had enjoyed the land for 
 perhaps more than one generation, sometimes found 
 himself plunged into the class of commoners, by the 
 sudden transference of the property to a nearer kins- 
 man of the chief. The proceeding created no public 
 clamour ; for, by the descent in this manner among 
 the people of the evident relations of the head of the 
 sept, all classes were strengthened in their belief in 
 a common family origin. The obedience of the mass 
 of the clan was thus rendered still more devout, 
 while the ominous example, no doubt, attached the 
 remaining tacksmen all the more zealously to the 
 person of their absolute lord. The family of the 
 degraded patrician, notwithstanding, we cannot sup- 
 pose to have joined in the general acquiescence : on 
 the contrary, some malcontents must have been thus 
 created, from time to time, in the very bosom of the 
 clan, and some bold adventurers " let down the 
 wind to prey at fortune." 
 
 Again, the tacksmen, or gentry, so to speak, let 
 out their portions of territory to the commoners ; 
 and these, in turn, let their little farms to their 
 children and grandchildren, in endless subdivision. 
 A surplus of population was the necessary conse- 
 quence, beyond the number which could be sup- 
 
82 
 
 OUTCASTS. 
 
 ported by the produce of the soil ; and hence the 
 eternal wars of the different clans, and the creaghs 
 of all upon the neighbouring lowlands. But the 
 cadets of the tacksmen, born patricians, yet ap- 
 parently intended by destiny for plebeians, were the 
 most troublesome class to provide for. They, of 
 course, resorted to arms as a profession. Disdaining 
 to sink into shepherds or cultivators, they became a 
 sort of honourable banditti ; and, neither openly coun- 
 tenanced by the chief, nor abandoned by him to their 
 fate, continued to hang with so loose a hold upon 
 society, that the slightest wind of circumstance 
 might bear them away upon its wings. 
 
 Where could be found a vent for these two 
 classes of the community, so turbulent, if not so 
 dangerous — the younger sons of tacksmen, and the 
 tacksmen themselves, degraded from their rank ? 
 In some cases, discontent, in others pride, in others 
 crime — fear — jealousy — hate — love — disappointment 
 — anything — every thing might render their absence 
 from the ancestral territory desirable. But where 
 were they to go ? Not to the lowlands, if they 
 were highlanders, for their lives ; and not to the 
 highlands, if they were lowlanders. Not to another 
 clan of the same country, whether highland or low- 
 land ; for there, if received at all, it would be with 
 the contempt due to recreants and deserters. Not 
 ^ to England, where a hedge of frontier spears opposed 
 their entrance ; and, where, even if they did enter, 
 the name they still loved and gloried in must be 
 forgotten. The sea alone was open, and the distant 
 
COMMON RENDEZVOUS. 
 
 83 
 
 shores beyond ; and, therefore, was the continent 
 flooded, season after season, year after year, with 
 the proud, the haughty, the generous, the prodigal, 
 the loved and hated, the bravest, the highest, and 
 noblest of our Scottish youth. 
 
 These causes of emigration, or at least of indivi- 
 dual wanderings, continued to exist in the highlands 
 almost to our own day ; and as for those which in 
 the lowlands sprung up in their stead, when a gra- 
 dual modification had taken place in manners and 
 institutions, through the admixture of foreign tribes 
 with the original population — are they not written 
 in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Scot- 
 land ? 
 
 The history of the country is a continuous narra- 
 tive of the struggle of royalty with aristocracy, of 
 family with family. No trump of liberty is heard, 
 as in other regions, sounding through the land, to 
 call the People around the standard of revolu- 
 tion. No permanent and noble occupation is thus 
 afforded for the minds and swords of the young, the 
 adventurous, and the desperate. The endless wars 
 are Avars of names and races. Proscription continu- 
 ally takes place; property changes hands as if by 
 magic ; and swords are transferred from one master 
 to another. The weak, the conquered, the banished, 
 all flock in crowds to the main shores of the ocean ; 
 and there also resort the generous, the high-minded, 
 and the ambitious, to seek a wider and less distracted 
 field for their chivalry. 
 
 At every temporary cessation, also, of hostilities, 
 
84 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 great numbers of stirring spirits, who could not 
 w ait, and would not want, were obliged to seek em- 
 ployment for their swords on a foreign soil. Thus 
 at the end of the civil war in 1573, a crowd of both 
 officers and men, disgusted at the prospect of the 
 piping times of peace, passed over into the Low 
 Countries, and in the service of the states extended 
 greatly the military reputation of their country. 
 
 But France, more especially, was sure to become 
 the rendezvous of the Scottish gentlemen on the 
 occasion of any disgust at home ; for there many of 
 them had received their education. Blind Harry 
 says of the famous Douglas of the Bleeding Heart, 
 and his brother — 
 
 In knowledge that they might the more advance, 
 They were quickly sent to the best schools in France ; 
 
 and the superiority of the French schools continued 
 to be acknowledged in Scotland from that period 
 (the era of Robert Bruce) till the Reformation. It 
 was in going thither for his education that James I. 
 was taken prisoner by the English. So late as the 
 time of Charles II. we are informed by Sir Robert 
 Sibbald, that the Scots who apply themselves to the 
 sciences and the arts of war receive all their first 
 education in France. 
 
 When the two kingdoms were united under a 
 - Scottish monarch, who loved and favoured his own 
 countrymen, it was natural that many, at least of the 
 higher rank, should follow their prince to the seat 
 of government. Previous to that time the inter- 
 
SCOTTISH FORAYS. 
 
 85 
 
 course had been so limited, that in the reign of Eli- 
 zabeth, according to the Bishop of London's survey 
 in 1567, the number of Scots in London and West- 
 minster was only fifty-eight. After the death of 
 James the estrangement re-commenced. The 
 people shocked at the innovations in religion, and 
 the nobles mortified by the indifference of the new 
 king, made common cause, and flew to arms with 
 all their ancient readiness and rage. It was not till 
 the union, when the two nations became one, that 
 a full intermingling of the tides of population took 
 place. 
 
 That the proud, the noble, and the ambitious 
 should resort to that portion of the country which 
 is the seat of legislation — that all that is stirring 
 and adventurous in the spirit of an ever-restless 
 people should seek a field for action in the wider 
 and richer plains of the south — is far from being 
 wonderful. But not in England alone are our 
 forays made ! There is hardly a country in the 
 world — hardly a mountain, however wild — hardly a 
 valley, however lonely — which bears not some im- 
 press of the footsteps of the wandering Scot. In- 
 fluenced by national custom and example ; insti- 
 gated, perhaps, by some original peculiarity in the 
 blood ; and warmed by the transmitted tales of our 
 ancestors, we gird up our loins for travel. Poor at 
 home, we put forth our hand upon the riches of the 
 whole earth ; ruined in business, we fling our knap- 
 sack on our shoulder, and seek a new market 
 and a kindlier fortune ; insulted or oppressed, we 
 i 
 
86 
 
 scots' guards. 
 
 carry our broken sword and burning spirit to a more 
 equal field ; crossed in love, we dashed fiercely 
 away the tear-drops from our eyes — 
 
 There are maidens abroad more lovely by far, 
 Who would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar ! 
 
 The earlier Scottish travellers, it may be supposed, 
 were exclusively soldiers of fortune, whose maxim 
 was — 
 
 the world's mine oyster, 
 Which I with sword will open ; 
 
 and, accordingly, it is in the profession of arms, 
 which enjoys at once so large and so minute a share 
 of the historian's attention, that we find the most 
 distinct traces of their destiny. It is said by some 
 authors that Charles VII. was the first French king 
 who instituted a company of Scottish guards and 
 Scottish gendarmes ; but as the same writers attri- 
 bute also to this prince the establishment of stand- 
 ing armies, which, in fact, had been commenced by 
 Philipe-Auguste two centuries and a half before, 
 they are not entitled to implicit credit. At any 
 rate, we are informed by others, that the Scottish 
 guard, or king's archers (so called from their being 
 armed with bows and arrows) had existed long 
 before — so early, in fact, as the reign of Saint Louis 
 „ — and that it was Charles VII. who added some 
 French companies to their numbers. 
 
 The testimony borne to the conduct of the Scots 
 in this situation by Claude Seysil master of requests 
 
DUTIES OF THE GUARDS. 
 
 87 
 
 to Charles XII., and afterwards archbishop of Turin, 
 is very honourable. 
 
 " The French/' says he, in his history of that 
 prince, " have so ancient a friendship and alliance 
 with the Scots, that of four hundred men appro- 
 priated for the king's life-guards, there are an 
 hundred of the said nation, who are the nearest to 
 his person, and in the night keep the keys of the 
 apartment where he sleeps. There are, moreover, 
 an hundred complete lancers, and two hundred yeo- 
 men of the said nation, besides several that are 
 dispersed through the companies. And for so long 
 a time as they have served in France, never hath 
 there been one of them found that hath committed or 
 done any fault against the kings or their state ; and 
 they can make use of them as of their own subjects." 
 
 The functions and prerogatives of these guards 
 were as follows : 
 
 It was the duty of two of them to assist at mass, 
 sermon, vespers, and ordinary meals with the king ; 
 and this number was increased to six, at such high 
 ceremonies as the reception of ambassadors extraor- 
 dinary — touching publicly for the evil — creation of 
 knights of the king's order — and public entries of 
 cities. On these occasions six of the Scots' guard, 
 three at each side, stood by the person of majesty. 
 They kept, as already stated, the keys of the king's 
 apartment ; and they had charge of the choir of the 
 church, and of the boats of passage when the king 
 crossed a river. The keys of such cities as the 
 king entered publicly were delivered to them. 
 
88 
 
 EXTINCTION OF THE CORPS. 
 
 They attended at the coronations, marriages, and 
 funerals of the kings, and at the baptism and 
 funerals of the royal children. The coronation robe 
 belonged of right to their captain, when the king- 
 died. They attended his effigy,* and carried his 
 body to the grave. 
 
 In the reign of Henri II. several other foreigners 
 were admitted into the Scottish Guards, which seems 
 to have given great offence. A deputation from the 
 states of Scotland remonstrated with the king, and 
 he granted a breviate, the original of which is still 
 extant, dated 28th June, 1558, promising that in 
 future no person should be suffered to enter this 
 charmed circle who was not at once a Scot and a 
 scion of a good family. The royal word, however, 
 was not binding upon his successor ; and repeated 
 remonstrances of the same nature were made by queen 
 Mary, James VI, and the privy council of Scotland 
 in 1599. At that date, notwithstanding, three fourths 
 of the body continued Scots : but the change was 
 not so mere an accident, as it appeared ; and by 
 almost imperceptible degrees, as the Scots died off 
 their places were filled by Frenchmen, till at length 
 nothing remained but the name of the guards, and 
 the answer to the roll-call " Here ! " 
 
 * For the singular custom of the effigy, see Turner's Tour of this 
 year. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 He turned his charger, as he spake, 
 
 Upon the river shore, 
 He gave his bridle reins a shake, 
 
 Said, "Adieu for ever more, 
 My love ! 
 
 And adieu ror ever more." 
 
 The Scottish gendarmes took precedence of all 
 the gendarmerie of France ; and on some occasions 
 were allowed the pas even by the two companies of 
 the king's monsquetaires. The sons of our kings 
 were usually captains of the corps ; and we find 
 James VI. claiming it for prince Henry as a right. 
 Prince Charles (afterwards Charles I.) enjoyed also 
 that honour ; and after him the duke of Lennox and 
 the marquis of Huntley. It is uncertain whether 
 Charles II. was ever captain or not ; but his brother 
 the duke of York was the last subject of Great 
 Britain by whom the office was held. He resigned 
 it in 1667- 
 
 i 3 
 
90 ALLIANCE OF SCOTS AND FRENCH. 
 
 Besides these companies of guards and gendarmes, 
 there were several battalions of Scottish troops in the 
 army, whose military reputation was very high, and 
 who were treated with proportionate distinction. 
 But the civil immunities and previliges allowed to \ 
 my countrymen before the accession of James VI. 
 to the crown of England, are still more remarkable. 
 A Scot had only to plead his country, to be enfran- 
 chised of any town, city, or corporation. 
 
 The alliance between the Scots and French is said 
 by Fordun and others to have existed from the time 
 of Charlemagne ; and in the contract of marriage 
 between the dauphin of France and Mary of Scot- 
 land, an allusion is made to the ancient friendship 
 between the two kingdoms, which is stated to have 
 lasted for eight hundred years. The Chronicle of 
 Normandy quotes a missive from one of our kings 
 to Charles-le-Chauve, beginning — " Rex Scotorum 
 ad Carolum, pacis et amicitise gratia, legatos cum 
 muneribus mittit." Chambers gives a series of 
 treaties from Malcom III. and Philipe I. down to 
 Alexander III. and Saint Louis, but unfortunately 
 for the historian's reputation, he was never able to 
 produce his authorities. From Philip the Fair, how- 
 ever, and John Baliol, in 1295, the series is com- 
 plete down to Henri IV. and James VI., and its 
 authority susceptible of proof. 
 
 ' France always gained more by this alliance than 
 Scotland ; and indeed the latter country seems to 
 have behaved throughout more in the spirit of chi- 
 valry than of policy. Her greatest succours were 
 
CHIVALRY. 
 
 given under the most desperate circumstances ; and 
 when her ally was deserted by every other friend, it 
 was precisely then that the Scots remembered their 
 treaty. 
 
 After the battle of Crecy, so fatal to France, 
 David II. in order to create a diversion, marched an 
 army across the borders, and ravaged the whole of 
 the north of England. In returning he lost a bloody 
 battle, was himself taken prisoner, and was only ran- 
 somed after a captivity of ten years* 
 
 In the same way, when an English king was 
 crowned at Paris, and the cause of the dauphin was 
 beyond hope, the flower of the Scottish troops poured 
 in thousands into the bloody fields of France. Again, 
 in 1422, after Charles VII. had had his army cut in 
 pieces at the battle of Devreuil, the earl of Douglas 
 carried over five thousand Scots to his assistance. 
 In 1428, when the fortunes of the same prince were 
 at the lowest ebb, he again called upon his ancient 
 friends demanding not only troops, but the eldest 
 daughter of James I. for a wife. Both requests were 
 granted. The princess, however, was still a child, 
 and she did not cross the channel till 1436; when, 
 by way of a dowry, she carried with her another 
 reinforcement. 
 
 Louis XII. in his letters of privilege, even goes 
 so far as to say that Charles VII. owed the expul- 
 sion of the English, and the pacification of his king- 
 dom to the assistance of the Scots. These are the 
 words : 
 
 "Et dernierement, du temps du vivant du feu 
 
92 
 
 FRENCH GRATITUDE. 
 
 nostre tres cher seigneur et cousin le roi 
 Charles VII. (que Dieu absoille) plusieurs princes 
 du diet royaume d'Ecosse, avec grand nombre de 
 gens de la dicte nation, vinrent par def a pour aider 
 et expulser hors du royaume les Anglois, qui dete- 
 noient, et occupoient la plus part du royaume ; les 
 quels exposerent leur personnes si vertueusement 
 contre les diets Anglois, qu'ils furent chasses, et le 
 diet royaume reduit en son obeissance." 
 
 It is needless to add that the fatal battle of 
 Flodden, in which James IV. and the flower 
 of his nobility lost their lives, was fought in the 
 quarrel of France ; and still more so to remind the 
 reader that our preference of a French to an English 
 alliance, in the marriage of Mary, involved the 
 nation in almost utter ruin. 
 
 The French were not ungrateful. Honours and 
 privileges of all kinds were showered upon the 
 Scots. Some of them were elevated to the highest 
 rank in the peerage ; some were made high consta- 
 bles, some marshals of France ; some were advanced 
 to the government of distant provinces ; in the 
 law, and in the church, they rose to the very 
 highest dignities ; and in the university of Paris, 
 one of the nations of whom the faculty of arts was 
 composed was styled " Natio Germanorum et Sco- 
 torum." As if this was not enough to shew the 
 ^closeness of the connexion intended to be carried 
 on between the two countries, the whole nation was 
 naturalized in France by one deed ; the Scots were 
 exempted from all taxes levied upon foreigners ; 
 
THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 
 
 93 
 
 and the goods of Scottish merchants were admitted 
 into the kingdom duty free. 
 
 In the Swedish army under Gustavus Adolphus 
 (in which the British force amounted to ten thou- 
 sand men) there were thirty-five colonels, and fifty 
 lieutenant-colonels — all Scots. The nucleus of the 
 array was formed by Lord Reay, who, when the 
 Thirty Years' War had fairly begun, carried over a 
 thousand of his clansmen ; and, accompanied by the 
 laird of Fowlis, and other Scottish chiefs with theirs, 
 plunged headlong into the melee.* In 1629 they 
 joined the army of Gustavus Adolphus ; and two 
 years after played a fearful part at the battle of 
 Leipsic. 
 
 " When the battle had continued for some time," 
 says an eye-witness, " the Saxon troops, auxiliaries 
 of the Swedes, had been driven from the field, and 
 other corps much pressed ; in short, all that wing 
 was shattered, and in an ill condition. At this 
 juncture came the king, and having seen what havoc 
 the enemy had made of Cullenbach's troops, he 
 came riding along the front of our three brigades, 
 and himself led us on to the charge ; when the 
 Scots advanced, seconded by some regiments of 
 
 * A reinforcement of seven hundred men, led on by Colonel Munro of 
 Fowlis some years after, was shipwrecked near Rugenwall, between 
 Staten and Dantzic. A few muskets were saved — but neither stores nor 
 ammunition. The swords, however, of the party still remained in their 
 possession ; and, scaling the walls of Rugenwall at midnight, they carried 
 the fortress by assault, although strongly garrisoned by Imperialists, and 
 kept it for nine months, till relieved by a Scottish regiment under Colo- 
 nel Hepburn, and a body of Swedes. 
 
94 
 
 FOREIGN SERVICE. 
 
 horse., which the king had also sent to the charge, 
 the bloodiest fight began that ever man beheld ; for 
 the Scots' brigade giving fire, three ranks at a time, 
 over one another's heads, poured in their shot so 
 thick, that the enemy were cut down like grass 
 before a scythe ; and following into the thickest of 
 their front, they made a most dreadful slaughter — yet 
 there was no flying. Tilly's men might be killed, 
 but no man turned his back, nor would give an inch 
 of ground, but as they were wheeled, or marched, 
 or retreated by their officers ; and though they knew 
 all was lost, would take no quarter, but fought it 
 out to the last, the men being found dead, next 
 day, in rank and file, as they were drawn up." 
 
 Foreign service was always preferred, and is to 
 this day, by the Scottish soldier. " I have had fre- 
 quent experience of this," says Colonel Stewart, " in 
 my own person, while serving in the forty-second, 
 and seventy-eighth regiments. On many occasions, 
 numbers of young Highlanders enlisted for foreign 
 service (and this sometimes in bands together), on 
 receiving less than one-half of the bounty-money 
 given at the time by officers, recruiting for their 
 commissions in the regular and fencible regiments 
 for home service, as likewise by others for militia 
 substitutes. When I was recruiting for the seventy- 
 eighth, the regiment was in the East Indies, and 
 the prospect held out to the men of embarking for 
 that country in a few months ; yet they engaged 
 with me, and other officers, for ten guineas, when 
 they could have got twenty as militia substitutes." 
 
FORTY-SECOND. 
 
 95 
 
 The national regiments were always preferred, 
 although in them the soldiers must have felt tolerably 
 sure of being cut to pieces in a very short time. In 
 1776, eight hundred men were raised almost at once 
 for the forty-second, on a bounty of one guinea, 
 while twelve guineas were vainly offered by officers 
 of other regiments. The latter could not find a man 
 to serve until the national corps was completed. 
 
 The same preference of honour to money has been 
 repeatedly shown by the Scottish soldiery, and more 
 especially by the Highlanders. At the battle of 
 Fontenoy, when the duke of Cumberland, in order 
 to testify the admiration with which the conduct of 
 these brave men had inspired him, promised to grant 
 any request they might make, consistent with reason 
 and duty, their reply was very remarkable. One 
 of them at the time lay under sentence of corporal 
 punishment for allowing a prisoner to escape. 
 
 " We are deeply sensible," said they, ' f of your 
 royal highness's condescension; and we beg of you 
 the pardon of our comrade, or at least the remission 
 of a sentence which, if inflicted, will bring disgrace 
 upon us all, and on our families and country." 
 
 The Black Watch, or forty-second regiment, was 
 originally composed entirely of such men. The 
 king, having expressed a strong desire to see some 
 specimens of these wild animals, whom it was the 
 fashion of the day to represent as " gloomy and 
 savage depredators, speaking a barbarous language, 
 and inhabiting a barren and gloomy region, which 
 fear and prudence forbad all strangers to enter," two 
 
96 
 
 wanderer's return. 
 
 privates were sent to him from Scotland, and pre- 
 sented by their lieutenant-colonel, Sir Robert Munro. 
 They performed the broad-sword exercise, and that 
 of the Lochaber axe, to the great delight of his 
 majesty, the Duke of Cumberland, marshal Wade, 
 and a crowd of general officers ; and when the ex- 
 hibition was over, received from the king — one gui- 
 nea each. The mountaineers had too much true pride 
 to reject the royal gift ; but they presented it to the 
 porter at the door as they went out. One of these 
 men, John Campbell, of the family of Duncares, in 
 Perthshire, fell at Ticonderoga, the captain-general 
 of the regiment ; the other, Gregor Mac Gregor, 
 surnamed the beautiful, who also received pro- 
 motion, was the ancestor of Sir Gregor Mac Gregor, 
 better known by the title of the Poyais chief. 
 
 It is said that the Scots rarely return permanently 
 to their own country, after having once secured a 
 footing elsewhere. This I presume to be true. In- 
 volved in the labyrinth of business, or fastened down, 
 like other men, to the soil they occupy, by the 
 chains of habit or the human affections, they are 
 constrained to yield to circumstances. But if they 
 do find their way back to the forsaken ark, the visit 
 is, in three cases out of four, productive of disap- 
 pointment. 
 
 I am, myself, in the noon of manhood, according 
 , to the measurement of time; and the years, there- 
 fore, cannot be very numerous that have estranged 
 me from my native place. Yet what has been my 
 own experience ? I found the green hill, where I 
 
4 
 
 DAY DREAMS 97 
 
 gathered wild-berries when a child, planted with 
 houses; in the busy street, which was once filled 
 with my friends, or enemies, or acquaintances, there 
 was not one who knew me — not one ; my name was 
 like a forgotten sound in the ears of my own towns- 
 men ; everywhere a chill, glassy, unconscious eye, 
 met mine, that was blinded with feeling ; I could 
 not even find my way to the graves of my family, 
 through the crowd of new tombs that encumbered 
 the ground. 
 
 Was it there, — even if the troubled waters of my 
 destiny had subsided, and my wandering foot might, 
 at length, find a resting-place upon the earth — was 
 it there I should have chosen to sit down after my 
 pilgrimage ? I could not have done it ; my eye was 
 shocked, and my heart grieved. This was the end 
 of the day-dreams of sixteen years ! I was like a 
 man who had been regaling for that space on the 
 delicious viands of the Daoine Shi, and, when the 
 fairy spell was broken, found them to be nothing 
 more than dust and ashes. 
 
 This, it may be said, is a common picture, and 
 applicable, in the same manner, to other countries. 
 It is so, but not to the same extent. Scotland has 
 but lately emerged from comparative barbarism ; she 
 has only lately begun to breathe, after a series of 
 struggles carried on, with hardly an interval, for a 
 thousand years. Her claymores have been beaten 
 into ploughshares, and her lances into reaping-hooks. 
 The hardy Gael has descended from his mountains, 
 to contend with the lowlander in arts instead of 
 
 K 
 
98 
 
 MAGIC OF WEALTH. 
 
 arms. Industry is every day producing capital, and 
 capital extending industry, in ceaseless reaction. 
 Villages are growing into towns, and towns swelling 
 into cities. Old families are falling, and new ones 
 springing up; property changing hands, and the 
 people changing places. The aspect of the whole 
 country declares, that an active and intelligent race 
 have at length risen up, delivered from the incubus 
 of aristocracy, and the spells of hereditary prejudice, 
 and are triumphantly applying those ever-restless 
 energies expended hitherto in war, to the cultivation 
 of the arts of peace and civilization. 
 
 But the appearance of change, so displeasing to 
 the imagination, however gratifying it may be to the 
 judgment, is only visible to the same extent in the 
 busier congregations of the human kind. There the 
 very aspect of nature is metamorphosed by the magic 
 of new wealth ; the wild stream is changed into a 
 canal ; the shady lane conjured into a street. The 
 wanderer is unable to recognize a single line of 
 the picture engraven so long and so deeply on his 
 heart. 
 
 In the remoter districts, the principle of change is 
 only active in the human beings that inhabit them. 
 The external features are complete ; and while wan- 
 dering among the hills and woods of our infancy, we 
 people them from memory with their moral associa- 
 ~ tion, calling up — 
 
 To view 
 
 The spectres, whom no exorcism can bind, 
 The cold — the changed — perchance the dead — anew, 
 The mourn'd, the lov'd, the lost — too many ! yet how few! 
 
LAST MINSTREL. 
 
 99 
 
 If the Last Minstrel had found his hamlet en- 
 chanted into a town, he would have fled from the 
 spot in poetical indignation ; but with the woods 
 and streams around him, as pure and beautiful as 
 when the tones of his harp first echoed over the 
 romantic land, he was consoled for the loss of tf old 
 times and old manners." No matter that now, an 
 outcast and a beggar, 
 
 He tuned to please a peasant's ear, 
 The harp a king had loved to hear : 
 
 The river, the mountain, and the forest still re- 
 mained — and, rejecting indignantly the idea sug- 
 gested by his audience of a richer and " more 
 generous southern land," he poured forth that well- 
 known descant (which sends a thrill to the heart of 
 hearts) concluding thus : 
 
 By Yarrow's stream still let me stray, 
 Though none should guide my feeble way ; 
 Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break, 
 Although it chill my withered cheek ; 
 Still lay my head by Teviot stone, 
 Though there forgotten and alone, 
 The bard may draw his parting groan ! 
 
 For my own part, while rejoicing most sincerely, as 
 I do, in the happy change experienced by my 
 country, I shall still continue to wander, from 
 choice, by the Thames, the Seine, the Rhine, 
 the Loire, or the Rhone. I shall still continue 
 to dream of old times, and old scenes, and old 
 
100 
 
 KINDLY SCOT. 
 
 faces ; still continue to conjure up from the dust 
 of ages the phantoms of Caledonia's " elder day ; " 
 and still, still continue to feel my eyes glisten, and 
 my heart grow warm, when the accents of the north 
 rush past my ear, and when I see suddenly before 
 me in a foreign land the face of a "kindly Scot." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 That castle rises on the steep 
 
 Of the green vale of Tyne; 
 And far beneath, where slow they creep 
 From pool to eddy, dark and deep, 
 
 You hear her streams repine. 
 
 On the road from Peebles to the capital, there 
 are many remarkable objects well worthy of the 
 traveller's attention; but with so confined a space 
 as mine, I can only notice such as Mr. Cattermole 
 has considered most worthy of his pencil. 
 
 The small town of Lauder, through which we 
 pass, is a place noted in Scottish history for the 
 massacre of the favourites of James III. 
 
 The character of this prince appears to me to 
 have been unfairly dealt with, both by the ancient 
 and modern historians. His love of low-born favo- 
 rites was of course an unpardonable crime in the 
 feudal ages; but the heart of a king, as well as 
 that of every other man, requires to rest itself some- 
 k3 
 
102 
 
 JAMES THE THIRD. 
 
 where. To choose a noble for his friend in that 
 turbulent period would have been to raise up a rival 
 against himself, and at the same time to bring all 
 the rest of the "order" upon his head. His father 
 and grandfather had had enough of those nobles. 
 The former was murdered by them ; and the latter, 
 unable otherwise to cope with the power of Douglas, 
 the first vassal of the crown, stabbed him to the 
 heart with his own hand. 
 
 James, at once hating and fearing the nobles, who 
 were the hereditary enemies of his race, assembled 
 around him men of humble rank, attached to the 
 liberal professions, and even the mechanical arts. 
 With these he amused himself with music, archi- 
 tecture, and other studies, far beyond the calibre of 
 his ignorant barons; and at length came to be looked 
 upon as a Scottish Sardanapalus, too far sunk in 
 refinement to be worthy of reigning over a barbarous 
 people. 
 
 A cabal was formed against him, traitorous in- 
 trigues entered into with England the enemy of the 
 state, and preparations on all hands made for civil 
 war. J ames, lost as he was in an effeminate attach- 
 ment to the arts of peace, possessed the hereditary 
 courage of his family — a courage which descended 
 uninterrupted till the blood of the Stewarts was 
 mingled with that of Darnley — and rising up in 
 ^ wrath, he crushed the conspiracy before it was ripe. 
 One of his brothers was executed, and the other fled 
 to England; where he had the baseness to enter 
 into negociations, the object of which was to barter 
 
THE PARVENUS. 
 
 103 
 
 the independence of the kingdom for the assist- 
 ance requisite to set him upon the throne of his 
 brother. 
 
 This was the point at which Scottish kings, 
 nobles, and peasants, in spite of all their feuds, never 
 failed to meet with one heart, and one hand. The 
 irreat barons of the crown mustered their vassals 
 to repel the invasion, and all assembled at the camp 
 at Lauder. Their patriotic valour, however, did 
 not prevent them from seeing that the minions of 
 James, surrounded by an immense army, were 
 now in their power ; and they resolved to begin the 
 war by reading a " great moral lesson" to their 
 king. 
 
 The favourites seem to have conducted themselves 
 with all the vanity natural to men of low station 
 brought suddenly into familiarity with their prince ; 
 and Lindsay's account of the transaction, notwith- 
 standing the horror of the deed, is almost amusing. 
 
 Besides a tailor, a smith, a musician, and a fenc- 
 ing-master, there was Cochran, the mason, created 
 Earl of Mar, the most splendid, if not the most 
 worthy, specimen of the Scottish nobility of the 
 time. He came to the church where the nobles 
 were assembled in deep deliberation on his fate, 
 accompanied by three hundred men-at-arms, armed 
 with light axes, and dressed in a white uniform with 
 black bands — " that they might be known," as 
 Lindsay says, "for Cochran the Earl of Mar's men." 
 He himself was gorgeously arrayed in a riding-suit 
 of black velvet, with a chain of gold round his neck 
 
104 
 
 THE RULING PASSION. 
 
 to the value, enormous at that time, of live hundred 
 crowns. He had also, " four blowing horns, with 
 both the ends of gold and silk set with precious 
 stones. His horn was tipped with fine gold at every 
 end, and a precious stone called a beryl hanging in 
 the midst. This Cochran had his pennant borne 
 before him, over-gilt with gold, and so were all the 
 rest of his horns ; and all his pallions were of fine 
 canvas of silk, and the cords thereof of fine twined 
 silk ; and the chains upon his pallions were double 
 overgilt with gold." The gloomy barons, unawed by 
 all this splendour, laid hold of him and his fellows 
 without ceremony. They endeavoured also to cap- 
 ture another, called Ramsay (afterwards created 
 Earl of Bothwell), but James succeeded in tearing 
 him from their grasp. The rest they dragged to a 
 bridge over the Leader, close by — the foundations of 
 which are still visible near Thirlstane House — and 
 hung them, like dogs, over the parapet. Poor 
 Cochran, insensible to the hardship of being hanged, 
 was only indignant that his executioners should bind 
 the hands of so fine a gentleman with a common 
 hempen rope. He implored them to make use of 
 one of the silken cords of his pallion for so dignified a 
 purpose ; but this only added to the irritation of the 
 barons, and he had at last the misery to find himself 
 suspended — above his companions, it is true — but 
 'in a hair tether — the very meanest of the family 
 of ropes. 
 
 On the borders of the Tyne, on the angle of a steep 
 bank, stands Crichtoun Castle, dominating a country 
 
CRICHTOUN CASTLE. 
 
 105 
 
 neither remarkably wild nor picturesque, yet im- 
 pressing the traveller almost with a feeling of the 
 sublime by its own lofty and massive majesty. 
 
 The edifice consists of a quadrangular mass of 
 buildings, almost all of different ages. The most 
 ancient is supposed to be a small donjon in the north 
 western angle, which was probably the only residence 
 of the Crichtouns, till the political aggrandizement 
 of the family introduced a taste for magnificence. 
 Some of the adjacent buildings to the east are referred 
 by Scott to the epoch of James II. ; but there are no 
 precise dates for determining the age of the other 
 portions. The eastern side is very splendid in archi- 
 tecture, and therefore very unlike a Scottish castle. 
 Above the portico of the front facing the inner 
 court, the stones are cut in the form of diamonds, 
 which gives a rich and somewhat fantastic appear- 
 ance to the edifice. The whole of the first floor of 
 this side, as was frequently the case, is disposed in a 
 grand gallery, used probably as a banquetting-hall. 
 
 The massie-more, or subterranean dungeon of the 
 castle, described by Pennant, as " a deep hole with 
 a narrow mouth," is connected with an anecdote, 
 which shows in a very curious light, the manners 
 of the time. I have already noticed, however, a 
 similar fact in describing the conflict between the 
 Breadalbane men and a highland clan. 
 
 On that occasion the audacity of travellers passing 
 through the country, without paying their respects 
 to the chief, cost a considerable loss of blood; but at 
 Crichtoun castle the baron contented himself with 
 
106 
 
 MASSIE-MORE. 
 
 lowering the contumacious stranger into the depths 
 of his subterranean. This personage, it is said, 
 proved to be Scott of Buccleugh, one of the most 
 powerful chiefs on the border ; and Crichtoun, terri- 
 fied at the idea of having provoked a feud with such 
 an opponent — or, perhaps merely influenced by the 
 same feeling which made Sir Robert Hazlewood 
 shrink from the solecism of "committing a captain of 
 horse to jail," — resolved the next morning on making 
 the amende honorable. This he did in a manner 
 strangely characteristic of the time ; by drawing 
 forth his guest, establishing him in the seat of honour 
 at table, and retiring himself to take his place in the 
 dungeon. 
 
 The Crichtouns, although an ancient family, were 
 included among the lesser barons, or gentry, till 
 the advent of Sir William Crichtoun, in the reign 
 of James I., who, by his civil talents, much more 
 than his military courage, raised the family to an 
 equality with almost the first houses in the kingdom. 
 
 At the death of James I. he was made chancellor 
 of the kingdom ; in which office he had not only to 
 strive with his colleague, Livingston, appointed to the 
 custody of the young king, but with the gigantic 
 power of the Douglases. During a minority in 
 Scotland, the great struggle seems always to have 
 been to get possession of the royal person; and 
 -accordingly, Crichtoun and Livingston had a hard 
 tug for the prize. The youthful James was at 
 one time smuggled out of the castle of Edinburgh, 
 then in the hands of the chancellor, concealed in a 
 
MURDER OF DOUGLAS. 
 
 107 
 
 chest, and carried to Stirling, the stronghold of Liv- 
 ingston. At another time he was kidnapped by the 
 former, while hunting in the park, and safely lodged 
 again in the castle of Edinburgh. 
 
 When these two rivals were at length reconciled 
 — men who had been elected to their elevated posts, 
 chiefly because they bore no ancient or solid rank in 
 the state, and therefore could not be looked upon as 
 rivals by the greater nobles — their united power set 
 the family of Douglas at defiance, and their united 
 cruelty cut short the life of the young and accom- 
 plished heir of that all but royal house. 
 
 The hopes of the Douglases, so long the rivals of 
 their sovereign, rested on this unfortunate youth, a 
 fine high-spirited young man of eighteen. He was 
 enticed to the castle of Crichtoun, and hospitably en- 
 tertained ; the next morning drawn on in like manner 
 to the castle of Edinburgh • and there arrested in 
 the presence of his companion and quondam play- 
 fellow, the king. James in vain begged the life of 
 his friend. He wept and prayed — but all was in 
 vain. After a mock trial, the youth was dragged to 
 an inner court, and there beheaded with his younger 
 brother. 
 
 The young king, it may be supposed, never forgot 
 this terrible scene. He grew up in hatred of his 
 chancellor and Livingston ; and on his coming of 
 age, leagued himself with the then earl of Douglas, 
 deprived Crichtoun of his office, and summoned him 
 to stand his trial. The ex-chancellor, instead of 
 obeying, shut himself up in Edinburgh castle, which 
 
108 
 
 WONDERS OF LOVE. 
 
 he defended gallantly for nine months ; and even 
 then surrendered on honourable terms which gua- 
 ranteed his life and property. 
 
 In 1469, a lord of Crichtoun formed an attach- 
 ment for the princess Margaret of Scotland, and 
 one — being then a married man — not altogether, 
 it is to be supposed, of a platonic nature. En- 
 gaging soon after in the rebellion of the duke of 
 Albany, he was compelled to take refuge in En- 
 gland ; and in all probability but for the wonders 
 sometimes operated by love, the Scottish history of 
 the Crichtouns would have closed here. Margaret, 
 however, was inconsolable for the loss of her para- 
 mour, and had so much interest with her brother, 
 that overtures were made to him, offering a free par- 
 don provided he would return and marry the princess. 
 His wife, having opportunely died a short time be- 
 fore, the descendant of the petty laird of Crichtoun 
 was not slow in embracing the proposal : he came 
 back to Scotland, wedded the king's sister, and re- 
 moved for ever from his ancestral castle. At the 
 present day, as Sir Walter Scott informs us, the clan 
 of Crichtoun is almost extinct. 
 
 Crichtoun castle then passed, by royal gift, into the 
 hands of the Hepburns, earls of Bothwell, and after 
 them became the property of the famous Francis 
 Stewart, son of the prior of Coldinghame, a natural 
 „ son of James V. An account of that Hepburn who 
 married the queen of Scots occupies too large a space 
 in the history of the country to be attempted here ; 
 but the strange, wild, turbulent character of his 
 
SCOTTISH MUNCHAUSEN. 
 
 109 
 
 successor, Stewart, has in it, notwithstanding the 
 profligacy of the man, something peculiarly attrac- 
 tive to the lovers of romance. 
 
 " The Earl of Bothwell," says Scott, in the Pro- 
 vincial Antiquities, " according to his learned coun- 
 tryman (Sir Thomas Urquhart, of Cromarty,) was 
 a terror to the most desperate duellists of Europe, 
 and a subduer of the proudest champions, both 
 Turks and Christians; the gasconades of France, 
 the rhodomontades of Spain, fanfaronades, and 
 braggadocio brags of all other countries, no more asto- 
 nished his invincible heart than would the chirping 
 of a mouse conjure down the fury of a bear robbed 
 of her whelps. Not to mention his conquest over a 
 strong and warlike Mahometan, who had appealed, 
 like a second Goliah, the whole champions of Christ- 
 endom to enter the lists with him, Sir Thomas 
 Urquhart affirms, that Bothwell would very often 
 in the presence of ladies, whose intimate favou- 
 rite he was, give some proof of the undauntedness 
 of his courage, and by the mere activity of his body, 
 with the help of a single sword, set upon a lion in 
 his greatest fierceness, and kill him dead upon the 
 place. After this, the reader will not be startled to 
 find that, by way of pastime, he was wont to set 
 upon some ten or twelve swordsmen at once, and lay 
 such thick and threefold load upon them, that he 
 quickly made them betake themselves to their heels/' 
 
 This second Munchausen did not content him- 
 self with encounterino; lions and Mahometans : 
 he plunged headlong, without the shadow of a 
 
 L 
 
110 
 
 NIGHT SCENE. 
 
 motive, into every wild conspiracy which distracted 
 the early part of the reign of James VI., and made 
 himself one of the most conspicuous characters 
 in the history of the times. He was at length laid 
 hold of by the Scottish Solomon — not for raising 
 political storms, but that elemental one, which en- 
 dangered the queen's life on her voyage from Den- 
 mark ! He made his escape from prison, assembled 
 his followers, went straight to the palace of Holy- 
 rood-house, in the middle of the night, and pressed 
 on to the king's apartments — to do he knew not 
 what. Here, however, he found the doors shut ; and 
 while endeavouring to burst some of them open, 
 and set fire to others, the citizens of Edinburgh, 
 awakened by the noise, had time to run to arms. 
 
 Both well was attainted, and obliged for a season 
 to remain quiet ; but soon, wearying of inactivity, 
 he started suddenly up, and attempted to seize the 
 king's person at Falkland. Being beaten, he took 
 shelter under the wing of Queen Elizabeth ; but 
 soon after, by the assistance of the disaffected nobles, 
 he actually penetrated into the king's chamber with 
 his armed adherents at his back. James indignantly 
 called upon him to finish his treasons by stabbing 
 his sovereign to the heart ; upon which the sensitive 
 earl fell upon his knees, and implored pardon. Par- 
 don could not be refused under such circumstances ; 
 - and a deed of amnesty was actually signed by the 
 king. 
 
 James, however, was casuist enough to find out 
 soon after, that such a document, extorted by vio- 
 
SERGEANT BOTHWELL. 
 
 Ill 
 
 lence, was not binding ; yet he still offered a pardon 
 to Bothwell, on the sole condition that he would sue 
 for it as a grace rather than demand it as a right. The 
 terms were too hard : the earl took up arms again ; 
 and, being this time repulsed, fled to the borders. 
 Queen Elizabeth was now against him, for he had 
 identified himself with the Popish cause ; he was 
 excommunicated by the church of Scotland for the 
 same reason ; and his followers, tired of being the 
 tail of such a comet, left him to his fate : whereupon 
 he passed over into France, thence to Spain, and 
 thence to Italy ; and for the rest of his life had 
 nothing better to do than to kill lions and Maho- 
 metans. 
 
 A grandson of this prodigy, whose name also was 
 Francis Stewart, was a private trooper in the horse- 
 guards. He is immortalized in the character of 
 sergeant Bothwell, in Old Mortality ; although in 
 my opinion, he died in his mortal part too early — 
 for the interest of the story. It is not easily that 
 one submits his mind to the spell of the romancer, 
 after he has witnessed the last fight of the gallant 
 trooper, and heard his exclamation — " Base peasant- 
 churl ! thou hast spilt the blood of a line of kings ! " 
 
 Crichtoun Castle is not less interesting to the 
 traveller, as affording one of the scenes in Marmion. 
 The annexed engraving represents this redoubted 
 English knight in colloquy with Sir David Lindsay, 
 in a hall of the castle ; a locality which the artist 
 has chosen in preference to the battlements, for the 
 purpose of giving an interior view. Marmion is 
 
112 
 
 PHANTOM KNIGHT. 
 
 relating his midnight adventure with the phantom 
 knight, and scruples not to avow the terror he 
 felt. 
 
 I've fought, lord lion, many a day, 
 In single fight, and mix'd affray, 
 And even I myself may say, 
 
 Have borne me as a knight : 
 But when this unexpected foe 
 Seem'd starting from the gulf below, — 
 I care not though the truth I show, — 
 
 I trembled with affright ; 
 And, as I placed in rest my spear, 
 My hand so shook for very fear, 
 
 I scarce could couch it right. 
 
 They encounter, and Marmion, as may be expected, 
 rolls upon the plain. 
 
 High, o'er my head, with threatening hand, 
 The spectre shook his naked brand — 
 * * # 
 
 Thrice o'er my head he shook the blade. 
 But when to good St. George I pray'd, 
 (The first time e'er I ask'd his aid), 
 
 He plung'd it in the sheath ; 
 And on his courser, mounting light, 
 He seemed to vanish from my sight. 
 
 The superstition here referred to is common 
 throughout the north of Europe, and particularly in 
 Scotland. The weapons of these warlike spirits, as 
 we are informed by the author of the Secret Common- 
 wealth, are "solid earthly bodies, nothing of iron, 
 but much of stone. Their armes (cut by airt and 
 tools, it seems, beyond humane) have somewhat of 
 the nature of thunderbolts' subtilty, and mortally 
 
SPIRITUAL HERO. 113 
 
 wounding the vital parts, without breaking the 
 skin ; of which wounds I have observed in beasts, 
 and felt them with my hands." The spirits, how- 
 ever, are not " infallible Benjamites, and hitting at 
 a hair's breadth ; nor are they wholly unvanquish- 
 able, at least in appearance." 
 
 The same author, the reverend Robert Kirk, 
 minister of Aberfoil, was acquainted with an indi- 
 vidual who was in the habit of combating such 
 enemies. On one occasion this person told the 
 minister that he had just cut in twain the body of 
 his ghostly opponent, and so escaped his onset. 
 
 L 8 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Of magic, cabala, and spells, 
 And every dark pursuit allied 
 To curious and presumptuous pride. 
 
 So much has been written of late years on the 
 superstitions of almost all nations, that I shall be 
 readily excused for not devoting much space to those 
 of the Scots. At the same time, without endea- 
 vouring to point out the general characteristics of 
 the popular faith, I could hardly hope to convey so 
 full an idea as I could wish of a people whose pecu- 
 liarities are fast passing away. The Scots, in fact, 
 of our great romancer may be said already to have 
 ceased to exist — except perhaps in some of the pas- 
 toral districts, and in the remoter highlands. When 
 nations lose, or change, their faith in spirits, their 
 moral identity is gone. 
 
 Natural religion in all countries has been pretty 
 
NATURAL RELIGION. 
 
 115 
 
 much the same. The sun was necessarily the first 
 deity. Remote, unknown, inscrutable ; hidden with 
 light as with a veil ; sweeping through the heavens 
 majestic and alone ; exercising a daily and indispu- 
 table power over the lower world and its denizens ; 
 the poor wanderers of the earth at all times, and in 
 all countries, before the brighter light of revelation 
 arose, saw in him the visible deity of the universe. 
 Then the moon, "walking in brightness," the queen 
 of the sea, whose tides rose upon the earth, or re- 
 tired into their eternal caves at her command ; then 
 the trooping stars, resembling her in form, but infe- 
 rior in magnitude and power — all in turn became 
 objects of adoration. The comets were evil influ- 
 ences, rushing in amidst the order of the sky ; and 
 their appearance portended war and disaster. The 
 inarticulate moaning of the storm became the voice 
 of a viewless god ; and the roar of the forest, as it 
 bent before the passing deity, was heard as the 
 reply of a kindred immortal. The river, spreading 
 beauty and fertility through the land, was the visible 
 body of an invisible spirit ; and the tall mountain, 
 once the temple or the altar of the heavenly host 
 — huge, dark, voiceful, and mysterious, became at 
 length a god itself. 
 
 Finding everywhere modifications of the same pri- 
 mitive religion, the learned, with useless ingenuity, 
 have attempted to trace them to some local foun- 
 tain. They might as well try to prove, that in 
 ancient times the stars could be seen nowhere else 
 than from the hill-tops of Phoenicia. It was the 
 
116 BIRTH OF SUPERSTITION. 
 
 religion of nature ; and it existed in a certain stage 
 of society — however modified by climate and circum- 
 stance — wherever the sun shone, and the mind of 
 man was impressible through the organs of his body. 
 
 Even after the introduction of a pure and com- 
 paratively simple creed, had put to flight these chi- 
 meras of ignorance and fear, and the countless train 
 by which they were followed, some of them returned 
 in a new form. The heart was unwilling to part 
 altogether, even with fictions to which it had been 
 endeared by long habit. The old faiths and the old 
 rites of paganism mingled with Christianity itself ; 
 and men compounded with their consciences for the 
 impiety, by degrading, and rendering subservient, 
 the former. The gods, so to speak, were converted 
 to the new religion of their worshippers ; and in 
 process of time they dwindled into the phantoms of 
 what are called, in the restricted sense of the word, 
 the superstitions of the people. 
 
 If this view of the subject be correct, it must be 
 unnecessary to inquire deeply into emigrations and 
 conquests, antecedent to the birth of history, in 
 order to account for the inter-resemblance of popular 
 beliefs throughout the world. Superstitions, instead 
 of having been borrowed by one people from another, 
 should be considered the productions of the soil in 
 which we see them grow ; their peculiarities should 
 * be referred to the particular genius of the nation 
 — even to the physical circumstances of the land 
 wherein we find them ; and, in this point of view, 
 instead of being merely an object of curious research, 
 
POPULAR FAITH. 
 
 117 
 
 they become one of the most interesting and im- 
 portant studies that can be imagined. 
 
 The superstitions of Scotland are generally sup- 
 posed to be divided into those peculiar to the high- 
 lands, and those peculiar to the lowlands ; and the 
 distinction is gratuitously taken as a proof on their 
 own side, by the advocates of the original difference 
 of the races. To me, however, it appears to owe 
 its origin to nothing more than the difference in the 
 habits of the people, and in the soil they inha- 
 bited. Before the lowlanders became "eaters of 
 wheaten bread/' as they were contemptuously called 
 (although somewhat enviously, perhaps, at bottom) 
 by the highland Scots, the superstitions of the whole 
 country were, in all probability, much alike ; for in 
 reality the physical aspects of the two districts did 
 not differ so widely as to produce any very remarkable 
 modifications. With the customs and manners of 
 the people, however, the popular faith insensibly 
 changed its character ; receiving a new colouring 
 from the new circumstances in which it grew. The 
 traits described in Burns's Hallowe'en, for instance, 
 belong almost all, to a pastoral or agricultural coun- 
 try ; while those which we find even in the modern 
 highlands present indications of a wild and romantic 
 people. 
 
 The rural sacrifice of the Bel Tein is not the least 
 remarkable of the highland customs; and, as it 
 contrasts strikingly with those of the lowlands 
 alluded to, it may be worth while to recall it here 
 to the reader's memory. 
 
118 
 
 PAGAN SACRIFICE. 
 
 On the first of May the inhabitants of the village 
 assemble at some appointed spot, each person bring- 
 ing with him whiskey, and a cake of oatmeal ; for 
 no one must appear empty handed. They begin by 
 digging a square trench in the ground, leaving an 
 altar of turf in the middle, on which a wood fire is 
 speedily kindled. A large vessel is then placed 
 upon the fire, into which the devotees, standing 
 round, fling their offerings of eggs, butter, oatmeal, 
 and milk ; and when this beverage is properly con- 
 cocted, a libation is poured out to the invisible 
 spirits of the world. 
 
 The company then produce their votive cakes, on 
 each of which there are nine knobs, dedicated to the 
 beings, both natural and supernatural, whom they 
 are met to deprecate. Turning their faces towards 
 the fire, they break off these knobs, one by one ; 
 and, throwing them over their shoulder, devote them 
 separately, saying, " This I give to thee — preserve 
 thou my horses ! This I give to thee — preserve thou 
 my sheep ! " When they have thus gone the round of 
 the supernatural preservers, they propitiate, in the 
 same way, the real destroyers of their property. 
 " This I give to thee, O fox — spare thou my lambs ! 
 This to thee, O hooded crow ! This to thee, O 
 eagle ! " And when the sacrifice is complete, they 
 sit down, and partake of the remainder themselves, 
 - sanctifying the unhallowed repast with abundance 
 of whiskey. 
 
 What was the exact nature of the spirits so pro- 
 pitiated it is impossible to tell. There is a dimness 
 
spectre's child. 
 
 119 
 
 and mystery about the Scottish superstitions, in 
 which perhaps resides one half of their poetical 
 charm. In general, notwithstanding, these super- 
 natural beings, like the angels of Scripture, are 
 perceptible to the touch as well as the sight ; and 
 they are often as susceptible of love, and the other 
 human passions, as men themselves. 
 
 In the mountainous districts they are generally of 
 a stern and gloomy character, amounting frequently 
 to the sublime. The lonely Gael, with the voice of 
 the storm or the waterfall in his ear, and clouds of 
 dark vapour whirling and tumbling around his head, 
 is not likely to indulge in gentle or agreeable 
 visions. He resembles the " spectre's child," des- 
 cribed by Scott in a manner which traces with 
 philosophical accuracy the sources of highland su- 
 perstition. 
 
 The desert gave him visions wild, 
 Such as might suit the spectre's child. 
 When with black cliff's the torrents toil, 
 He watch'd the whirling eddies boil, 
 Till, from their foam his dazzled eyes 
 Beheld the river demon rise ; * 
 The mountain mist took form and limb 
 Of noontide hag, or goblin grim; 
 The midnight wind came wild and dread, 
 Link'd with the voices of the dead ; 
 Far on the future battle-heath 
 His eye beheld the ranks of death : 
 Thus the lone seer, from mankind hurl'd, 
 Shaped forth a disembodied world. 
 
 * Scott explains this to be the kelpie of the lowlands, appearing to the 
 mountaineer in the form of a horse. There is surely nothing in common 
 
120 
 
 GREEN WOMEN, 
 
 If, perchance, he creates a phantom of beauty, her 
 kisses are sure to be poison, and the flash of her 
 eye destroying lightning. Of such are the Green 
 Women, who appeared to the hunters, as they sat 
 enjoying themselves in their lonely bathy after the 
 fatigues of the chace. It was in a deep glen or 
 gorge of the mountains, where a double night fell 
 upon the earth, shrouded by its mantle of trees, and 
 overhung by projecting cliffs. The two hunters, 
 however, were young ; their bathy, or temporary 
 hut, defied both wind and water ; the pine log on the 
 middle of the floor sent up a blaze to the very roof ; 
 their potent flask, although already half empty, was 
 still half full; and, unrepressed by the gloom of 
 the scene, their joyous songs continued to rouse till 
 midnight the sullen echoes of the glen. 
 
 " We have whiskey and music," said one to the 
 other, when their mirth was at the highest, " oh, 
 for a third blessing ! " 
 
 "You are right," replied his friend: "oh, for 
 two mountain damsels to sit by our side ! " 
 
 " Hush ! hark ! " — At the word some faint sweet 
 voices rose upon the stilly air, not far from the hut : 
 the sound approached, and grew louder ; then the 
 harmonious pattering of feet was heard upon the 
 sward ; and then, the door opening, two beautiful 
 girls entered the bathy, singing and dancing. 
 
 They were clad in green, of the richest silk ; and 
 
 between them, however, except their delight in mischief. W hen I was a 
 child I did not dare to go near a small lake in Renfrewshire, for fear of a 
 water-bull which was said to inhabit it. 
 
TEMPTATION. 
 
 121 
 
 their naked and moving shoulders seemed to rise out 
 of their dress, like the bright foam of a torrent 
 invading its banks of spring heather. Although 
 children no longer, they were in the earliest dawn 
 of woman's beauty ; and their redundant wreaths of 
 flaxen hair were confined by the virgin snood. Their 
 blue eyes, as they danced round the hunters, seemed 
 lighted up, half by joy, half by voluptuous meaning: 
 they looked like daughters of earth, although hea- 
 venly fair. But how ? — whence ? — why ? — the young 
 men gasped, as they inquired what could be the 
 nature of these midnight visitants ; till at length one 
 of them, overcome by sudden passion — by the fumes 
 of the mighty flask — by the presumptuous spirit of 
 youth — caught the nearest damsel in his arms as 
 she flitted by. 
 
 A playful shriek completely re-assured him ; but 
 the fair dancer, eluding his grasp, sprang over the 
 threshold; and turning round for a moment a laugh- 
 ing glance, full of triumph and invitation, was lost 
 in the darkness beyond. The hunter followed. 
 
 "Let us see where they are gone," said the 
 remaining girl. 
 
 " No ; we will not disturb them." 
 
 " We may go without disturbing them," persisted 
 the damsel with a coquettish air ; " the glen is wide 
 enough for us all." 
 
 " It is dark — it is cold : let us sit down here." 
 
 " The moon shines so brightly on the cliff tops ! 
 The waterfall looks like molten silver. Come — 
 come !" Her eyes flashed so fiercely with impa- 
 
122 
 
 SALVE REGINA. 
 
 tience, that the young man began to fancy there was 
 something unearthly in their splendour. 
 
 " Wait till my friend returns/' said he. 
 
 " It will be too late ; I must even now begone. — 
 Come ! give me your hand — " 
 
 " Another moment ; let me first ask — hark ! — " 
 
 A cry rose in the distance : it was his comrade's 
 voice. At that moment the young woman began to 
 sing louder than ever; but her strains did not drown 
 the ill-boding sound. The terrified hunter, per- 
 ceiving the toils into which he had so nearly fallen, 
 invoked protection in a hymn, consecrated to the 
 service of the Virgin ; and the louder rose his Salve 
 Regina, the feebler became the accents, and the 
 dimmer the form of the mysterious damsel. At 
 every pause, however, in the holy strain, she re- 
 newed her songs and temptations ; till the hunter, 
 before the return of dawn, was almost lost from 
 sheer fatigue and exhaustion. At the first streak of 
 daylight, the outlines of her figure became wavering 
 and indistinct ; and at length, waxing dimmer and 
 dimmer, as the dawn advanced, and her unearthly 
 strain melting gradually away from his ear, she 
 wholly disappeared. 
 
 As soon as it was light enough, he searched the 
 haunted ravine for his friend; and finding, as he had 
 expected, only the fragments of his body, he hastened 
 away in grief and terror from the Glen of the Green 
 Women. 
 
 In general, however, the spectres of the highland- 
 ers appear in forms of terror rather than of beauty, 
 
HISTORICAL APPARITION. 
 
 123 
 
 and with threats rather than invitations. Scott has 
 noticed one of them in the notes both to Marmion 
 and the Lady of the Lake, struck, no doubt, by 
 his picturesque appearance. This is the Llam-dearg* 
 who haunts the forests of Glenmore and Rothie- 
 murchus, armed cap-a-pie, like an ancient warrior, 
 and having a bloody hand. Those who have the ill 
 luck to cross his path, must consent to encounter 
 him in fight; and they do not survive the combat 
 long. Another is the Glas-lich, or "noon-tide hag," 
 who strides through the wild district of Knoidart 
 in the form of a tall, emaciated, gigantic, female 
 figure. 
 
 The spectres of the Scots sometimes warn as well 
 destroy, as in the instance of the one which appeared 
 to King James. This is one of the best attested 
 apparitions in history; and as Scott remarks, "we 
 have only the choice between a miracle and an im- 
 posture." The king was at church in his favourite 
 town of Linlithgow, when a man, upwards of fifty 
 years of age, with a great pike-staff in his hand, 
 came in at the door among the courtiers, and desired 
 to speak with him. The visiter was dressed in a 
 blue gown, and girded with a roll of linen cloth ; 
 there were buskins on his feet, but he wore no cap, 
 his long reddish hair hanging down unconfined upon 
 his back and shoulders. The king was engaged in 
 prayer ; but the stranger, going up to him without 
 ceremony, leant down upon the desk at which he was 
 
 * Red-hand. 
 
124 
 
 MIDNIGHT SUMMONS. 
 
 seated, and addressed him in this manner : iC Sir 
 King, my mother hath sent me to you, desiring you 
 not to pass at this time where you are purposed ; for 
 if thou dost, thou wilt not fare well in thy journey, 
 nor any one that passeth with thee." James, struck 
 with this singular address, paused upon the message 
 for a moment, that he might return an answer ; but 
 when he raised his head, the man was gone. " Before 
 the king's eyes/' says Pitscottie, " and in the pre- 
 sence of all the lords that were about him for the 
 time, this man vanished away, and could no way be 
 seen or comprehended, but vanished away as he had 
 been a blink of the sun, or a whip of the whirlwind, 
 and could no more be seen." 
 
 Of the same nature is the midnight Summons 
 heard at Edinburgh, when the fated king had fully 
 resolved upon that expedition which cost Scotland 
 the flower of her chivalry. The silence of the night 
 was broken, at the dead hour, by a voice reciting a 
 lengthened catalogue of the names of individuals, — 
 earl, lord, and baron — who were summoned to appear 
 within the space of forty days before the infernal 
 throne. All those who were included in the procla- 
 mation fell, soon after, with the king, on the field of 
 Flodden — all, except one man. This person, whose 
 name is given by Pitscottie, hearing the unearthly 
 summons, as he stood in his balcony at night, had 
 uttered, with a loud voice, an appeal to the mercy of 
 God and his Saviour. 
 
 It may be said, (after some historians) that the 
 message to James was in all probability a message 
 
RUNNING STREAM. 
 
 125 
 
 from his queen ; and that the midnight summons 
 was, in like manner, a stratagem of the same party 
 to deter him from his projected invasion of England. 
 The stories, notwithstanding, are as much part and 
 parcel of the superstitions of Scotland as if they were 
 unsusceptible of explanation. Had they not been 
 consonant to the genius of the people, and to the 
 popular faith, they would never have been invented, 
 and if invented, would never have been believed. 
 
 Akin to these are the warnings received by indi- 
 viduals, or families, of approaching death ; whether 
 given in the scream of the Ben-shie, the riding round 
 the house of a phantom-horseman, the beating of 
 invisible drums, the appearance of conflicting armies 
 in the sky, or the numerous other forms in which the 
 presage of fate was communicated. 
 
 The Scottish fairies are so well known, that the 
 mere mention of their name will suffice to carry 
 on the train in the mind of the reader. It is pos- 
 sible, however, that I may have something to say 
 on the subject in a subsequent chapter. 
 
 All these spirits seem more or less to have been 
 held in awe by the rites or symbols of Christianity ; 
 and in most cases they were put to flight by merely 
 making the sign of the cross. A running stream was 
 also potent in the dissolution of enchantments, and 
 as a protection against the pursuit of supernatural 
 enemies. I hazard the conjecture, that the latter 
 belief may have originated in the power of running 
 water over the scent of the blood-hound. This ani- 
 mal was used in Scotland from an early period ; and 
 m 3 
 
126 
 
 BRUCE AND THE BLOOD-HOUND. 
 
 must have been as troublesome, and as fatal, to 
 fugitives, as any fiend of them all. 
 
 Barbour describes a very gallant flight of Robert 
 Bruce, in which the hound was as close upon his track 
 as the witches were upon that of Tarn O'Shanter. 
 The hero divided his party into three ; which he 
 commanded to retreat by different routes ; for the 
 purpose of throwing his enemies into perplexity with 
 regard to the one taken by himself, the principal 
 object of the pursuit. The dog, however, was not 
 to be deceived, but followed the track of the king's 
 division. Bruce again subdivided his dwindled 
 party ; but with as little success as before. He 
 then ordered his attendants to disperse singly, and 
 fled himself with only his foster-brother behind him 
 — and the slough-hound. All hope of escape seemed 
 now vain. Five of the most active of his pursuers, 
 who had been sent in advance, were slain ; but the 
 main body, led on by the ceaseless baying of the 
 dog, were close at hand. Bruce threw himself down 
 exhausted, near the side of a brook which ran along 
 the skirt of a wood where they had sought a mo- 
 mentary shelter ; but suddenly recollecting the pro- 
 perty which he had heard ascribed to running water, 
 he started up, and waded the length of a bow-shot 
 down the stream, and then sought the country beyond. 
 When the enemy came up, they found the blood- 
 - hound by the side of the water, completely at fault; 
 and after many attempts to recover the trace, they 
 were obliged to relinquish the pursuit. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 It is a fearful strife, 
 For man endow'ci with mortal life, 
 Whose shroud of sentient clay can still 
 Feel feverish pang and fainting chill, 
 Whose eye can stare in stony trance, 
 Whose hair can rouse like warrior's lance— 
 Tis hard for such to view, unfurl'd, 
 The curtain of the future world. 
 
 In Scotland, as elsewhere, there were persons who 
 had attained, by superior knowledge, to a certain 
 sovereignty over the powers of the air. They some- 
 times commanded the actual service of supernatural 
 beings ; but more frequently arrived at this purpose 
 by means of glamour, or a magical imposition on the 
 senses. This is common in the oldest fictions of the 
 east ; and, in the history of Buddha more particu- 
 larly, we find numerous examples. When it was 
 necessary, for instance, to terrify an enemy by the 
 sight of an army, or a wild beast, these objects 
 
128 
 
 WITCHES. 
 
 did not actually make their appearance, but answered 
 the purpose as well by seeming to do so. 
 
 Witches, although occasionally exerting a similar 
 power, are, in reality, only mean and bastard ma- 
 gicians. What the one class acquires by force of 
 superior knowledge, the other obtains through a 
 miserable and impolitic compact. The modern 
 witches were probably introduced by the reforma- 
 tion, when every thing gorgeous and poetical in the 
 old superstition was discarded, and when simplicity 
 itself was debased into vulgarity. Men still felt the 
 need of supernatural belief, although old forms had 
 been done away with; and taste and beauty being 
 prohibited as deadly sins, they brought forward 
 witchcraft as an employment for the imagination, 
 just as they plastered up the niches left by the icono- 
 clasts with lime, gravel, and horse-hair. 
 
 The only thing they borrowed from Scripture in 
 the system is comprehended in these words: — 
 " Thou shalt not surfer a witch to live." The 
 witches of the Jews were ranked, in the penal pro- 
 hibitions, with enchanters, necromancers, sorcerers, 
 and magicians ; and when Saul went to her of 
 Endor, it was to pray of her " to divine unto him 
 by her familiar spirit, and to bring up him whom lie 
 should name." The familiar spirits did not sit on 
 their shoulders in the form of tabby-cats : they were 
 -spirits of knowledge and power, residing in the 
 individuals themselves ; and thus Paul, when he 
 pitied the divining damsel of Philippi, addressed 
 himself, not to her, but to that which was within 
 
TAM O'SIIANTER. 
 
 129 
 
 her, saying, — u I command thee, in the name of 
 Jesus Christ, to come out of her ; and he came out 
 the same hour." 
 
 The witches of Shakspeare are imagined, in the 
 same fine, poetical spirit. They are not damsels, it 
 is true, like the Macedonian girl mentioned above, 
 but they are diviners, and prophetesses, and rulers 
 of the world of phantoms. Burns's witch, on the 
 other hand, is a damsel, — and a rare one too. She is 
 the only modern witch now living, for those of 
 Shakspeare belong to an earlier age. It is impos- 
 sible to admire too much the tact which our Scottish 
 bard has exhibited, in the management of a subject, 
 which, if rendered all ludicrous, would have been 
 disgusting ; and if all serious — debased as the cha- 
 racter of his supernatural personages had become — 
 would have been ludicrous. Tarn O'Shanter must 
 always be ranked among the finest efforts of human 
 genius. 
 
 I cannot dismiss the subject without giving one 
 example of the poetry of the old system of witch- 
 craft. This superstition, in fact, as it existed in 
 modern times, is almost enough of itself to shut the 
 mouth of any modest advocate of the taste and 
 imagination of the Scots. 
 
 During the reign of Macdonald, Lord of the Isles, 
 a Spanish Princess, attracted by the reputation 
 of the holy monastery of Iona, came thither to pay 
 her vows as a pilgrim of Saint Columba. The fair 
 stranger, as her galley swept round the wild shores 
 of Mull, seemed like an apparition of beauty to the 
 
130 
 
 SPANISH PRINCESS. 
 
 mountain chiefs. But it was beauty such as they 
 had never seen before, of an order and character so 
 new, that she might have been the daughter of 
 another planet, as well as of another nation. The 
 fair skin, the blue eyes, the dancing blood, and the 
 buoyant step of the island maids were in her want- 
 ing. Her hair and eyes were as black as night ; her 
 skin was the colour of ripe wheat when the husk is 
 removed ; the blood either lay floatingly in her face 
 — but so far beneath as to be hardly perceptible — 
 or rushed wildly to the surface in a flood of beauty : 
 her step was slow, undulating, languishing, unwil- 
 ling, as if the spirits of the flowers pressed by her 
 feet, strove to detain them. The young lords of 
 the Hebrides knew not what to make of her. 
 " She is black !" said one. 
 
 " She could not dance a reel were it to save her 
 life !" said another. Nevertheless their hearts were 
 troubled ; sleep departed from their eyes ; and each 
 one as she passed took his boat, and followed in her 
 train. 
 
 " We are bewitched," said they, " but no matter, 
 we must dree our wierd \" 
 
 Of all these lords, Maclean of Duart was the 
 handsomest and boldest. Not contented with dree- 
 ing his wierd, he would meet it half way ; for the 
 glance of a young lassie's eye, whether black or blue, 
 - whether royal or mean, had no terrors for him. So 
 he followed close in the wake of the Spanish witch, 
 boarded her galley in a storm, on pretence of acting 
 as pilot, and at length saw her fairly landed in Iona. 
 
LORD OF THE ISLES-. 
 
 131 
 
 The princess, when she beheld the tall and grand- 
 looking highlander descend upon the deck, as if he 
 had risen from the wave, or darted out of the storm, 
 was at first struck with terror, and then with 
 curiosity. 
 
 " Are you the king of the country?" demanded she. 
 
 " I am king of my own territory." 
 
 " But you have a sovereign above you ?" 
 
 "Macdonald is lord of the Isles — I am lord of 
 Duart." The princess of Spain entered the mo- 
 nastery of Iona, leaning upon the arm of the lord of 
 Duart. 
 
 It was at last time to return homewards; and, 
 troubled and dejected, the young lady, in order to 
 obey the behests of her father, proceeded first to 
 visit, as a sort of ambassadress, the lord of the isles. 
 Maclean durst not enter DunstafFnage, there being a 
 feud between him and Macdonald, and as he slowly 
 retired, he exclaimed, with a bitter sigh — 
 
 " The king of the country ! She will now see 
 him ! O woman ! woman !" The lord of the isles 
 was not less smitten with the princess than the other 
 island lords, but he did not content himself with 
 gazing and sighing like the bold Maclean. He made 
 love in due form, and was refused. He persisted, 
 but all in vain. " Time will bring her round," said 
 he ; and the princess found herself a prisoner. 
 
 When Maclean heard of this consummation of his 
 lady's visit, he was half distracted between rage and 
 joy. The wrath of the mountaineer is hasty in its 
 effects — and sometimes, indeed, it is felt in vengeance 
 
132 
 
 CONFUSION. 
 
 before being heard in threats, just as the stroke of 
 the thunder precedes its roar. The same night he 
 surprised the castle of Dunstaffnage, and carried off 
 the princess and the lord of the Isles together. So 
 far all was well. The hurry and bustle of the scene 
 had unlocked Maclean's tongue, and the damsel's 
 heart. The lovers understood one another, and in 
 the lonely towers of Duart they had time to talk of 
 love. But what was to follow ? Would the king of 
 Spain leave his daughter a prisoner in the hands of a 
 petty chief? The castle, strong as it was, being well 
 defended by rocks and men, how long would it hold 
 out against an attack of Spanish galleys ? 
 
 " I will go home !" said the princess, wringing her 
 hands. 
 
 "Not so," replied Duart; "my clan indeed is 
 small, and the Macdonalds only wait the arrival of 
 your father's galleys to be upon us like a cloud 
 — but nevertheless, there is a chance. And he sent 
 to all the witches between Ardnacraig and Tobor- 
 mory ; and some for love, and some for loyalty, and 
 some for meed, and some for sport, agreed to help 
 him to defend his castle and his lady. 
 
 The king of Spain at length heard of this insult 
 to his crown and dignity ; and he fitted out an im- 
 mense galley, commanded by a Spanish lord, who 
 knew Scotland well, and sent him to Mull with orders 
 to seize his daughter and Maclean ; and to burn the 
 territory of Duart so bare, that there should not 
 remain two blades of grass, or two blossoms of hea- 
 ther within cry of each other. 
 
MYSTIC CROWS. 
 
 133 
 
 When the ship arrived, and cast anchor under the 
 rock on which the castle was built, the captain began 
 to wonder at the strange stillness about him ; for 
 there were no preparations on the part of the besieged : 
 every thing seeming to go on as if nothing was the 
 matter. He knew Scotland well, as I have said ; 
 and as he strode up and down the deck, he became 
 sorely troubled in mind. 
 
 " Boy !" cried he at length, with a sudden start — 
 "jump up to the mast-head, and tell me what you 
 see." 
 
 " I saw a black crow, sir," said the boy after he 
 came down, " circling and wheeling round the top- 
 most peak of the cliff." 
 
 " It is nothing," remarked the captain ; and he 
 walked the deck as before. In a little while he 
 dispatched the lad again to the mast-head, to look- 
 out for what he could see. 
 
 " There are two crows come to join the other," 
 said the messenger ; ' ' and they are all three scream- 
 ing and circling round the peak." 
 
 "No matter," returned the captain; "three crows 
 are easy to deal with." But when the boy went up 
 a third, and a fourth time, and at length reported 
 that the crows were assembled to the number of six, 
 the brow of the Spaniard grew black, and his step on 
 the gangway was less firm. 
 
 " It is heavy odds," said he — " and yet I will try; 
 the number of the enemy by this time must be surely 
 complete." When the boy came down again, how- 
 
 N 
 
134 
 
 INVOLUNTARY WIZARDS. 
 
 ever, reporting the appearance of a seventh black 
 crow, the captain's courage died. 
 
 " It is all over/' said he — " six might have been 
 been managed, although with difficulty enough ; but 
 no mortal man can strive with seven black crows !" 
 The words were scarcely uttered, when the sky 
 darkened, and a clap of thunder broke over his head. 
 The wind howled through the rigging ; the sea rose 
 in frightful surges upon the cliffs ; and the Spanish 
 galley, whirling round and round, sunk for ever into 
 the deep. 
 
 Macdonald was fain to recover his liberty, by giv- 
 ing up all pretensions to the hand of the Spanish 
 princess; and the king of Spain, having other 
 daughters at home, did not risk another galley on so 
 perilous an errand. 
 
 In Scotland, there were those also, who, far from 
 seeking any communion with infernal beings, shun- 
 ned and dreaded them; yet were obliged by an 
 unhappy fate to see, and in some cases were even en- 
 dowed with the unsought privilege of commanding 
 them. Such persons were born either on Christmas, 
 or Good Friday. 
 
 The faculty of the Second Sight is altogether dif- 
 ferent : it has no connection with diablerie, but is 
 concerned exclusively with men, and the fortunes of 
 men. Second-sight seems to me to be nothing more 
 nor less than a dream taking place, independently of 
 the circumstance of sleep. 
 
 The interpretation of dreams is reduced as much 
 to what may be called a science (false or true), as 
 
SECOND SIGHT. 
 
 135 
 
 that of the second-sight ; but we are so habitually 
 accustomed to their phenomena, that they attract 
 little of our attention. When an event does happen 
 resembling what we saw in our sleep, — instead of 
 reflecting that many hundred dreams had preceded 
 it, without being followed by any thing remarkable, 
 and that busied as we are in our slumbers with the 
 occurrences daily presenting themselves to our wak- 
 ing faculties, it was only wonderful that some 
 coincidence had not sooner taken place — we imme- 
 diately set down the vision as a supernatural pre- 
 diction. 
 
 The second sight is a dream of the same kind, 
 taking place when we are awake ; and it so per- 
 fectly corresponds with the habits of the highlanders, 
 that the system of their superstition would be in- 
 complete without it. Elsewhere, when we see a friend 
 fall into a state of abstraction, and observe its usual 
 phenomena, of eyes fixed and distended, yet taking 
 no cognizance of the objects before them — the 
 circumstance provokes only mirth or jocular remark. 
 But it is different in the highlands, where the solitary 
 mountaineer is accustomed to hear the voices of the 
 dead in the midnight storm, and to see in the dis- 
 persing mist the form of the noontide hag striding 
 over the hills. He looks upon his comrade — gene- 
 rally a retired and melancholy man — with curiosity 
 and awe ; and the seer himself is not slow in persuading 
 himself of the importance of that which is considered 
 so important by others. His reveries become habitual, 
 and he acquires the faculty of seeing and describing 
 
136 
 
 CURIOUS ANECDOTE. 
 
 with minuteness the visions they present. In the 
 confined range of accidents to which the small and 
 lonely community is subject, such as the arrival of a 
 stranger — death — sickness — marriage — a chief slain 
 in battle, or returning victorious, it is more than 
 probable that the prediction should frequently be 
 followed by the event. The most experienced seers 
 never pretended that all their visions turned to any 
 purpose ; and, perhaps, if we were to make accurate 
 allowance for the vastly greater number of events 
 about which the imagination of a denizen of the 
 plains is busied, and the vastly greater scarcity, 
 therefore, of coincidences, we should find the dreams 
 of the lowlanders to be quite as prophetic as the 
 taishitaraugh of the mountaineers. 
 
 The public, I fancy, are tired by this time of 
 anecdotes of second sight ; but the following, which 
 will occupy only a few lines, is so curious, that I 
 may be pardoned for inserting it. 
 
 " It is notoriously known what in Killin, within 
 Perthshire, fell tragically out with a yeoman that 
 lived hard by, who coming into company within an 
 alehouse, where a seer sat at table, that at the sight 
 of the intrant neighbour, the seer, starting, ran to 
 go out of the house ; and being asked the reason of 
 his haste, told that the intrant man would die within 
 two days ; at which news the named intrant stabbed 
 " the seer, and was himself executed two days after 
 for the fact." 
 
 The same author appears to consider a seer as a 
 kind of wizard, and imagines that the power of 
 
HOW TO BECOME A SEER. 
 
 137 
 
 seeing spirits may be communicated by one to 
 another. 
 
 " There be odd solemnities," says he, "at investing 
 a man with the priviledges of the whole mistery of 
 this second sight. He must run a tedder of hair 
 (which bound a corps to the bier) in a helinx about 
 his middle from end to end; then bow his head 
 downwards, as did Elijah, 1 Kings xviii. 42, and 
 look back thorough his legs untill he sie a funerall 
 advance till the people cross two marches ; or look 
 thus back thorough a hole where was a knot of fir. 
 But if the wind change points while the hair tedder 
 is tied about him, he is in peril of his lyfe. The 
 usewal method for a curious person to get a sight 
 of this otherwise invisible crew of subterraneans 
 (if impotently or over rashly sought) is to put his 
 left foot under the wizard's right foot, and the seer's 
 hand is put on the inquirer's head, who is to look 
 over the wizard's right shoulder (which has ane ill 
 appearance, as if by this ceremony ane implicite 
 surrender were made of all betwixt the wizard's 
 foot and his hand, ere the person can be admitted a 
 privado to the art ; ) then will he see a multitude 
 of wights, like furious hardy men, flocking to him 
 haistily from all quarters, as thick as atoms in the air ; 
 which are no nonentities or phantoms, creatures 
 proceeding from ane affrighted apprehensione, con- 
 fused or crazed sense, but realities, appearing to a 
 stable man in his awaking sense, and enduring a 
 rationall tryall of their being. These thorow fear 
 strick him breathless and speechless." 
 
 n 3 
 
138 
 
 THE DEAD. 
 
 I cannot quit the subject of popular belief, with- 
 out noticing the singular superstitions that are com- 
 mon throughout all Scotland regarding the dead. The 
 spirit, even after it resigns its mortal abode, does 
 not altogether depart from the place till the corpse 
 is buried. It hovers around it in the death-room ; 
 and, if properly summoned, may be compelled to 
 re-enter its prison of clay, and answer through the 
 organs of mortality whatever questions may be put 
 touching the cause of the decease. During the same 
 interval the numerous disembodied beings who take a 
 frightful interest in the fate of the souls of men, are 
 permitted to enter upon the scene. They crowd into 
 the room; and although invisible themselves, are 
 ready to take advantage of any indiscretion of the 
 attendants to make their presence sufficiently mani- 
 fest. The door, it may be added, must be either 
 wide open, or wholly closed — for what reason I can- 
 not tell. If left ajar, the next person who enters 
 the room will probably see the corpse sitting erect. 
 
 In conclusion, I think I am warranted in saying 
 that the superstitions of Scotland, in their general 
 bearing, although wild and fantastic in the extreme, 
 are characteristic of a highly poetical and imagina- 
 tive people. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Seem'd all on fire that chapel proud, 
 Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffin'd lie; 
 
 Each baron for a sable shroud, 
 Sheath'd in his iron panoply. 
 
 Seem'd all on fire, within, around, 
 Deep sacristy and altar's pale ; 
 
 Shone every pillar foliage-bound, 
 And glimmer'd all the dead men's mail. 
 
 Blaz'd battlement and pinnet high, 
 
 Blaz'd every rose-carv'd buttress fair — 
 
 So still they blaze when fate is nigh 
 The lordly line of high Saint Clair. 
 
 At Crichtoun we are only ten miles from Edin- 
 burgh, and in the straight road; but, in obedience to 
 the spell under which we lie, it is necessary to diverge 
 at a tangent towards the left, and visit all that re- 
 mains of the ancient seat of u Roslyn's barons bold." 
 
 The fortunes of the Esk present a greater variety, 
 and more startling vicissitudes than those of almost 
 any other stream in Scotland. Sometimes wandering 
 
140 
 
 ROSLYN CHAPEL. 
 
 along its banks, on a plain surface, where the eye is 
 regaled with nothing more interesting than the 
 blackened tracks diverging from a coal mine, the 
 traveller inquires indignantly, if it is possible that 
 he can be near the groves of Roslyn, and the caverns 
 of Hawthornden? In another instant, as if the 
 remonstrance had been heard by the fairies of the 
 spot, he finds himself suddenly plunged in a lonely 
 and romantic glen, protected by tall and castellated 
 rocks from the outer world, and where the stream 
 at the bottom glides softly through the trees, as if 
 dreading to break the enchanted silence by its 
 voice. 
 
 The castle of Roslyn stands upon a shelving cliff 
 which overhangs the Esk. The ancient portion of 
 the building covers the side of the rock, while the 
 modern addition rises above it. The whole is 
 approached by a bridge thrown over a kind of ditch 
 cut in the solid stone. The ruins present the same 
 appearance of massive strength which distinguishes 
 the other castellated buildings of the same age, but 
 are not otherwise remarkable. 
 
 The chapel, in the immediate neighbourhood, 
 situated also on a lofty rock overlooking the valley 
 of the Esk, is in many respects a more interesting 
 object than the castle. Although incomplete, its 
 incompleteness is not that of ruin. No traditions of 
 fire and sword account for its present situation — no 
 war of iconoclasm, at least that history knows of, 
 ever raised the impious weapon against the arts 
 which adorn it. The work seems to have been 
 
VARIOUS OPINIONS. 
 
 141 
 
 abruptly closed — perhaps by death, perhaps by 
 pecuniary misfortune ; and the edifice, therefore, 
 remains in our day the same magnificent fragment 
 which, no doubt, awakened at once the admiration 
 and regret of our ancestors of the fifteenth century. 
 
 The form is a parallelogram, about twice longer 
 than broad, terminating in a lady chapel at the east 
 end. The nave is bold and lofty, and inclosed as 
 usual by side aisles, the arches and pillars of which 
 are magnificently sculptured. The ornaments, 
 however, are said by Scott to present more of 
 richness than elegance ; while the strange anom- 
 alous mixture they exhibit of the styles of the 
 thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, have 
 an odd, and perhaps not a very agreeable effect. 
 
 Mr. Britton's impression, however, seems to have 
 been much more favourable. " This building," says 
 he, in the Architectural Antiquities, " may be pro- 
 nounced unique, and I am confident it will be found 
 curious, elaborate, and singularly interesting. The 
 chapel of King's College, St. George, and Henry 
 the Seventh, are all conformable to the styles of the 
 respective ages when they were erected ; and these 
 styles display a gradual advancement in lightness 
 and profusion of ornament : but the chapel of 
 Roslyn combines the solidity of the Norman with the 
 minute decorations of the latest species of the Tudor 
 age. It is impossible to designate the architecture of 
 this building by any given or familiar term : for the 
 variety and eccentricity of its parts are not to be de- 
 fined by any words of common acceptation. I ask 
 
142 
 
 apprentice's pillar. 
 
 some of our obstinate antiquaries,, how they would 
 apply either the term Roman, Saxon, Norman, Gothic, 
 Saracenic, English, or Grecian to this building ? " 
 
 A clustered column at the east end (which will be 
 seen in the annexed engraving) — one of those which 
 separates the chapel from the centre or nave — is an- 
 ther very remarkable irregularity, although, from the 
 beauty of its sculptured foliage, a very interesting 
 one. It is said in tradition that the master-archi- 
 tect, remembering to have seen a similar column at 
 Rome, travelled thither on purpose to be enabled to 
 give a correct copy. On his return, however, he 
 found that his apprentice had successfully executed 
 the work in his absence; and, maddened by jea- 
 lousy, he killed him with his mallet on the spot. 
 The column is to this day called the "Apprentice's 
 Pillar ; " and two sculptured heads at the corner of 
 the arch are pointed out as faithful portraits of the 
 master and his victim. Such stories are not unfre- 
 quent in the chonicles of old buildings ; and I 
 remember, in particular, that the memory of the 
 architect of one of the great churches at Rouen is 
 maltreated by tradition, on the subject of a window, 
 in pretty nearly the same manner. 
 
 Roslyn chapel was founded, and the castle built, 
 in 1446, by William St. Clair, whose titles are 
 given in full in the notes to the Lay of the Last 
 Minstrel. He was, it seems, a prince, duke, earl, 
 baron, lord admiral, lord chief justice, lord warden, 
 knight, high chancellor, chamberlain, and lieutenant 
 of Scotland! Mr. Chambers, in his Picture of 
 
ondmi.riibTishfil far the Proprietor T-y Logman * C° l^ternosier Row 
 
DANGEROUS WAGER. 
 
 143 
 
 Scotland (an excellent companion for the traveller), 
 gives the popular tradition of the origin of the 
 chapel. The above mentioned William St. Clair, 
 when hunting one day on Roslyn moor with King 
 Robert Bruce, wagered his head that his dogs Help 
 and Hold would pull down a white deer which they 
 started, before it could cross the march burn. 
 Away they flew with the speed of the wind, but 
 the deer still maintained its precedence, and St. 
 Clair began to feel as if his head grew loose upon 
 his shoulders. The flying animal at length gained 
 the very brink of the stream; and the knight, in 
 the sudden inspiration of mortal terror, vowed a 
 chapel to St. Katherine for his deliverance, and 
 shouted out to the hounds — 
 
 Help, haiul, an ye may, 
 
 Or Roslin will lose his head this flay! 
 
 The words were no sooner pronounced than the 
 seemingly hopeless chase was successful. Help 
 pulled down the deer in the act of taking the leap ; 
 and his master immediately crushed the faithful 
 brute to death with his foot, saying that it should 
 never lead him again into such perilous temptation. 
 A flat stone on the pavement, bearing the outline 
 of a man with a greyhound at his feet, is pointed 
 out by the person who shows the chapel as the 
 tombstone of this daring huntsman. 
 
 The superstitious belief, alluded to in the song of 
 Harold, in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, that the 
 chapel was seen as if on fire previous to the death 
 
144 
 
 HAWTHORNDEN. 
 
 of any of the race, is supposed by Scott to be of 
 still more northern origin, and to belong to the fa- 
 mily rather as princes of Orkney than as barons of 
 Roslyn. The chiefs were really interred in their 
 armour, as described in the ballad — 
 
 Each baron for a sable shroud, 
 Sheathed in his iron panoply. 
 
 The first of those who were buried in a coffin died 
 in the reign of James VII. 
 
 The reader is referred to the engraving as afford- 
 ing an admirable idea of the beauty and gorgeousness 
 of this remarkable building. 
 
 Near Roslyn are the caves of Gorton, said to have 
 been the retreat of Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dal- 
 wolsey, who did good service to his country in the 
 reign of David II. by harassing the English bor- 
 ders. The romantic nature of his enterprizes, and 
 the half guerilla, half banditti character of his force, 
 possessed such attractions for the Scottish youth of 
 that day, that at length it was held to be a necessary 
 point in the military education of a young man of 
 birth and spirit to serve a certain time under his 
 standard. 
 
 Following a foot-path down the river, the traveller 
 speedily arrives at a ruinous tower, with which is 
 connected, like a living body attached to a dead one, 
 a small and comparatively modern house. This is 
 Hawthornden, the family seat of Drummond, the 
 Scottish poet ; and on an adjacent rock is seen the 
 seat called the Cypress Grove, where he composed 
 
CRITICAL MODESTY 
 
 14f) 
 
 one of his religious poems. "This romantic spot/' 
 says the author of the history of Scottish poetry, 
 " seems to have been formed by nature in one of her 
 happiest moments. All the materials that compose the 
 picturesque seem here combined in endless variety — 
 stupendous rocks, rich and varied in colour, hanging 
 in threatening aspect, crowned with trees that ex- 
 pose their bare, branching roots ; here the gentle 
 birch hanging midway, and there the oak bending 
 its stubborn branches, meeting each other ; huge 
 fragments of rocks impede the rapid flow of the 
 stream that hurries brawling along unseen, but heard 
 far beneath mingling in the breeze that gently agi- 
 tates the wood." 
 
 Drummond is a bad historian, and a mediocre 
 poet : and perhaps his greatest claim to distinction 
 arises from the famous visit to Hawthornden of 
 Ben Jonson. The Scottish bard, on this occa- 
 sion, seems to have been greatly disappointed in 
 the man whom he had admired so much as an 
 author, and very naturally made memoranda of 
 the manners, character, and sentiments of his dis- 
 tinguished guest. These memoranda, however, were 
 never published by him, and probably were never in- 
 tended for publication; but the fact of their exis- 
 tence drew upon his memory the objurgations of 
 Mr. Gifford. "Enough of Drummond," says he, in 
 his Memoirs of Ben Jonson, " with whose " friend- 
 ship for our author, the common sense of the reader 
 will, I trust, no longer be insulted, except from the 
 lips of hopeless idiotism — longa manantia labri sa- 
 o 
 
146 
 
 BEN JONSON. 
 
 liva." But notwithstanding this dire denunciation, 
 Walter Scott has successfully defended his country- 
 man ; and the contrast is highly curious between 
 the manner of the great leviathan of modern litera- 
 ture, and that of the vulgar and venomous autocrat 
 of the Quarterly Review. 
 
 Scott has not given examples to prove the inno- 
 cence of Drummond of all thought of publication ; 
 but no one acquainted with the careful and ornate 
 style of the laird of Hawthornden, could suppose 
 for a moment that such loose memoranda as the fol- 
 lowing, were intended by him for an ordeal so terrible 
 to an amateur. 
 
 ' f He was posthumous, being born a month after 
 his father's death, and was put to school by a friend. 
 His master was Camden. Afterwards he was taken 
 from it, and put to another craft, viz. to be a brick- 
 layer, which he could not endure, but went to the 
 Low Countries, and returning home again, he betook 
 himself to his wonted studies. In his service in the 
 Low Countries he had, in the view of both armies, 
 killed an enemy, and taken the opima spolia from 
 him ; and since coming to England, being appealed 
 to a duel, he had killed his adversary, who had hurt 
 him in the arm, and whose sword was ten inches 
 longer than his. For this crime he was imprisoned, 
 and almost at the gallows. Then he took his reli- 
 gion on trust of a priest, who visited him in prison ; 
 he was twelve years a papist : but after this he was 
 re-united to the church of England, and left off 
 being a recusant. (At his first communion, in token 
 
a poet's mistress. 
 
 147 
 
 of his true reconciliation, he drank out the full cup 
 of wine.)" &c. &c. 
 
 As a specimen of Drummond's poetical style — 
 for the sake of contrast with the foregoing — I give 
 a portion of a sofig. Only fancy any lady or gentle- 
 man singing a lyric like the following, about the 
 length of the hundred and nineteenth psalm ! 
 
 Her hair more bright than are the morning's beams 
 Hung in a golden shower above the streams, 
 And dangling sought her forehead for to cover, 
 Which, seen, did straight a sky of milk discover, 
 With two fair bows, love's bows, which never bend 
 But that a golden arrow forth they send, 
 Beneath the which two burning planets glancing, 
 Flasht flames of love, for love there still is dancing. 
 Her either cheek resembled blushing morn, 
 Or roses gules in fields of lilies born : 
 'Twixt which an ivory wall so fair is raised, 
 That it is but abused when it is praised. 
 Her lips like rows of coral soft did swell, 
 And th' one lip th' other only did excell: 
 The Tyrian fish looks pale, pale look the roses, 
 The rubies pale, when mouth's sweet cherry closes. 
 Her chin like silver Phoebe did appear, 
 Dark in the midst to make the rest more clear: 
 Her neck seem'd fram'd by curious Phidias' master, 
 Most smooth, most white, a piece of alabaster. 
 
 The lady so laboriously described was Miss Cun- 
 ningham of Barns ; and her sudden death after 
 everything had been prepared for their marriage, 
 threw the poet into a deep melancholy, and made 
 him a wanderer in foreign countries for eight years. 
 At the end of that time, having at length discovered, 
 and drank of, the waters of oblivion, he returned to 
 Scotland, and married the daughter of Sir Robert 
 Logan of Restalrig. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A dusky grandeur clothed the height, 
 Where the huge castle holds its state, 
 
 And all the steep slope down ; 
 Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky, 
 Piled deep and massy, close and high, 
 
 Mine own romantic town ! 
 
 After a walk, or a run, or a ride, or a ramble — 
 which you will — of about seven miles, we reach the 
 " darling seat" of Caledonia; and, with her darling 
 poet, bid " all hail her palaces and towers." 
 
 The district of Midlothian is bounded by the 
 Frith of Forth, and the shires of Haddington, Ber- 
 wick, Roxburgh, Peebles, Lanark, and Linlithgow. 
 It is, generally speaking, a level country; its emi- 
 nences rising at best to the character of hills : but 
 where we now stand, about two miles southward of 
 the sea, the comparative monotony of its aspect 
 changes in a very sudden and extraordinary manner. 
 Here we arrive at a group of eminences, which, 
 although only hills in height, are mountains in form. 
 
EDINBURGH. 
 
 149 
 
 Steep,, rugged, and threatening, they overhang the 
 west like a thunder-cloud ; and, from their summits, 
 we seem to command the whole kingdom, as well as 
 the Frith of Forth melting away into the ocean 
 beyond. 
 
 One of these irregular steeps, about a mile in 
 length, rises from east to west ; the immense ridge 
 terminating abruptly at its loftiest point, in a grey 
 and naked rock, so precipitous as to be elsewhere 
 inaccessible. On this rock stands an antique castle^ 
 covering an area of six acres, and, to appearance 
 impregnable by the earlier art of war ; while the rest 
 of the ridge is hung with immense piles and streets 
 of building, so tall and huge, that the imagination 
 might easily convert them into a city of giants. The 
 black roofs of the houses, rising or sinking according 
 to the inequalities of the mountain site, and inter- 
 spersed with antique spires and towers, painted in 
 sharp contrast on the grey sky behind, add much to 
 the singularity of the picture. At the eastern end, 
 where the ridge begins to rise, stands the palace of 
 Holyrood House ; and between these two points, the 
 palace and the castle, is comprehended the Old Town. 
 Behind, to the south, lies a more modern portion of 
 the city ; but before, to the north, extends an im- 
 mense plain, covered with those streets of palaces, 
 built of polished stone, which is called par excellence, 
 the New Town of Edinburgh. 
 
 There is little doubt that Edinburgh, like most 
 other towns, owes its origin to its castle. This 
 fortress is mentioned in history, long before the town 
 o3 
 
150 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL RISE. 
 
 became of the smallest note — as early, it is said, as the 
 year 452 ; and it was here that the qneen of Mal- 
 com Canmore died, in 1093. The first distinct 
 traces of Edinburgh are contained in a charter of 
 David I. to the canons of the abbey of Holyrood. 
 The document however shows, that the place was, 
 before that time, a royal borough of some considera- 
 tion ; and it empowers the canons to erect a new 
 borough (that of Canongate), investing them with 
 the right of trial by duel, and of the ordeals of fire 
 and water. 
 
 In the reign of Alexander I. also, it is clearly 
 shown to have been a royal demesne ; but it was 
 not till after the murder of James I. at Perth 
 disgusted his successor with that city, that Edin- 
 burgh became a residence of the court. 
 
 Before the use of cannon, the houses that were 
 built for the sake of protection near a fortress, crept 
 as close to the walls as possible ; but in the present 
 case, there was only a single direction in which the 
 buildings could extend; and that was to the east- 
 ward, along the ridge of the steep, which -afforded 
 the only access to the castle. 
 
 So slowly did the architectural rise of this city go 
 on, that although, as I have stated, it became a royal 
 burgh before the time of David I., an act of the first 
 - James ordained, that the houses within the burgh 
 should not exceed twenty feet in height. This was 
 meant to prevent the damage arising from fires ; 
 and yet, at a much later period, the Scots boasted 
 that such accidents were no calamity to them,, as a 
 
GREY FRIARS. 
 
 151 
 
 day or two sufficed to raise a structure quite as mag- 
 nificent as the one destroyed. The frequency of 
 rires was, no doubt, caused, in great part, by the roofs 
 being of straw-thatch or broom ; and, indeed, so late 
 as the year 1621, it was found necessary to prohibit 
 the citizens of Edinburgh, by act of parliament, from 
 covering their houses with those slight and dan- 
 gerous materials. 
 
 Although James, however, appears to have re- 
 garded more the safety than the splendour of the 
 burgh, so far as the dwellings of the inhabitants 
 were concerned, in other respects he evinced the 
 taste for magnificence common to princes. It was 
 he who founded the monastery of the Grey Friars, 
 and brought over a colony of monks from Cologne. 
 In that city of ihe Three Kings, it is to be supposed 
 the ecclesiastics were accustomed, in their abodes, 
 to the highest degree of splendour and luxury ; yet 
 so extravagantly fine did the monastery of the Grey 
 Friars appear to Cornelius of Zurich, and the other 
 Franciscans, that it is said, no small degree of per- 
 suasion was necessary to get them to lodge in it. 
 
 This edifice stood on the south side of the Grass 
 Market, and nearly opposite its avenue called the 
 West Bow. The gardens were long since converted 
 into a public cemetery ; where a new church was 
 built in 1602. In the steeple of this church, as 
 Arnot informs us, a barrel of gunpowder, the pro- 
 perty of the town, was lodged — and a strangely 
 chosen lodging it was — and, by some accident or 
 other, the whole building was one day blown to 
 
152 
 
 OLD TOWN. 
 
 pieces. Another church, however, was built at the 
 western end ; and to this day the cemetery, as is 
 proved by the opposite engraving, affords one of the 
 finest views of the castle and city. 
 
 The Old Town, as I have said, runs about a mile 
 from east to west, from the castle to the palace ; and 
 through the whole of this extent there is now a single, 
 continuous line of street, distinguished in its various 
 parts, as the Castle-hill, the Lawn Market, the High 
 Street, and the Canongate. James the First would 
 not know again his twenty feet houses ! 
 
 The High Street, although the vista is now more 
 extensive than ever, has in some degree lost the 
 character of grandeur which formerly ranked it 
 among the finest in Europe. The Netherbow Port, 
 (gate) surmounted by a spire, has vanished, and the 
 view, which terminated there, is carried along the 
 Canongate, a narrower, and less remarkable street. 
 Still on the other hand, the removal of the Lucken- 
 booths, and the Tolbooth at the opposite end, has 
 extended the line through the Lawn Market, and 
 nearly as far as the Castle-hill, with scarcely any 
 deterioration taking place. In fact, the fault dis- 
 covered by those who remember the city (if such 
 there are) before these changes, seems to be, that the 
 High Street, by the destruction of its barriers, has lost 
 - that appearance of unity which gave it an air of 
 aristocrat) cal exclusiveness. 
 
 Scott, nevertheless, is of opinion, that it remains 
 still the most magnificent street in Great Britain, 
 with the sole exception of its namesake of Oxford. 
 
GIGANTIC HOUSES. 
 
 153 
 
 For my own part I suggest, with much deference 
 to such an authority, that no possible comparison 
 (except from contrast) can be carried on in the ima- 
 gination between the two. That of Oxford is an 
 avenue of churches and palaces : the High Street 
 of Edinburgh is a commercial street, — lofty, majes- 
 tic, and antique-looking, it is true, but not superior 
 in grandeur of effect — if I may be indulged so far — 
 to the Trongate of Glasgow. 
 
 This immense range of street, extending from 
 Holyrood Palace on the west to the Castle on the 
 east, comprises, with its innumerable tributaries of 
 streets, lanes, wynds, and closes, the old town of 
 Edinburgh. Here resided the aristocracy of the 
 capital, more especially towards the palace end of 
 the line; and here the houses, which in the time 
 of James I. were limited by law to twenty feet of 
 height, ran gradually up to an altitude which has not 
 been rivalled even in the French metropolis. 
 
 In these vast edifices, as in Paris, each story forms 
 one or more dwellings ; all accessible by a single 
 spiral staircase, Scotice, a turnpike stair. The floor 
 nearest heaven, called the garrets, has the greatest 
 number of subdivisions ; and here roost the families 
 of the poor. As we descend, the inmates increase in 
 wealth or rank ; each family possessing " an outer 
 door," answering to the street door of those who gro- 
 vel on the surface of the earth. The ground floor is 
 generally a shop, or other place of business; and the 
 underground floor is also devoted, not unfrequently, 
 to the same purpose, but in a lower sphere of 
 commerce. 
 
154 
 
 EDINBURGH AND PARIS. 
 
 The principal external difference between the 
 edifices in Edinburgh and Paris is, that in the latter 
 city the different floors belong more apparently to 
 the same house, and are all served by the same 
 porter ; whose bureau is in the court, and who directs 
 the adventurous explorer to the residence of any 
 family or individual he may be in quest of. The 
 whole building besides, is in general shut up by a 
 common gate, which it is the province of the said 
 porter to keep. In Edinburgh, on the contrary, the 
 visiter enters from the street, without let or bar- 
 rier of any kind; he ascends flight after flight, 
 inquiring his way, or reading the names on the doors, 
 which are each fashioned and painted so as to resem- 
 ble a street door ; and, in short, the turnpike differs 
 only by its steepness from a common thoroughfare. 
 
 The Scottish turnpikes, like those of Paris, were, 
 and frequently are, dirty in the extreme. The 
 water was carried up on men's shoulders, which may 
 partly account for its scarcity; and besides, as the 
 stair belonged to no one in particular, it was neglected 
 by all ; while its convenient obscurity rendered any 
 sins against cleanliness likely to pass without 
 discovery. 
 
 The various families, thus continually thrown into 
 contact, by the necessity of passing and repassing 
 each other's territories, were necessarily well ac- 
 quainted. To inhabit the same " land " gave one a 
 sort of right to be known to his neighbour. Besides, 
 the difficulty of access to the street kept up a constant 
 series of borrowings and lendings, which drew still 
 
PROGRESS OF LUXURY. 
 
 155 
 
 closer the bonds of intimacy. Moreover, if you fancy 
 a bevy of from half a dozen to a dozen serving lasses 
 meeting constantly on a common staircase, you may 
 imagine that no great mystery could be long pre- 
 served, as regarded the affairs of the different 
 families. 
 
 It is little more than sixty years since the change 
 commenced which has made Edinburgh, in addition 
 to being one of the most majestic and picturesque 
 of the old cities of Europe, one of the most elegant 
 and beautiful of the new. To describe the operation 
 however, does not come within the scope of my plan ; 
 and I turn for the present to take a slight glance at 
 the progress of luxury and manners among the 
 inhabitants. 
 
 We have seen, in a former chapter, the primitive 
 mode of cookery of the ancient Scots, and thence were 
 led to infer the general rudeness of their manners. 
 Two centuries later, however, than the time of 
 Froissart, there were found in the Scottish camp, 
 after the battle of Pinkey, not only provisions, but 
 silver utensils which denoted a very considerable 
 advance in the arts and comforts of civilization. 
 
 Towards the end of the sixteenth century, not- 
 withstanding, the state of society and manners in 
 Edinburgh was far from being what might have 
 been looked for in a capital city. Even in the 
 houses of the respectable inhabitants, the table was 
 served by male servants, wearing their bonnets, who 
 sat down with the company. To this fact, men- 
 tioned by Morrison in his Itinerary, I beg to draw 
 
156 
 
 SUMPTUARY LAW. 
 
 the attention of the reader, as illustrating a position 
 I have endeavoured to maintain in the introductory 
 chapters. The same primitive custom, however, 
 continued long after even in Edinburgh ; and when 
 there laid aside, remained, and in some districts 
 remains to this day, in the provinces. 
 
 The fare was varied according to the rank of the 
 guests ; those at the upper end of the table being 
 regaled with a pullet, and broth enriched with 
 prunes ; while the others were fain to be satisfied 
 with a platter of porridge and sodden meat.* 
 
 The tables of the nobles, however, presented a 
 very different aspect ; and it may be supposed that 
 a taste for luxury had already crept in, since it was 
 found advisable to restrain the indulgences of the 
 table by a sumptuary law. This prohibited all per- 
 sons under the rank of archbishop or earl from having 
 more than eight dishes at dinner ; of abbot, lord prior, 
 or dean, more than six ; of baron or freeholder, more 
 than four ; and of burgess, more than three : marriage 
 feasts, however, were not comprehended in this re- 
 gulation, nor entertainments given to foreigners. 
 
 The dinner hour was ten o'clock in the morning 
 and its appearance on the table was announced by a 
 flourish of trumpets, or the sound of a horn. Jellies 
 seem to have been the principal hors d'ceuvre ; 
 no fewer than five hundred ox feet, fifteen hundred 
 
 * The Scottish porridge, it may be necessary to inform my Southron 
 readers, is a condiment resembling the stirabout of the Irish, but not so 
 thick. It is made simply of oatmeal stirred into water while it boils, and 
 seasoned with salt. 
 
A TEMPERANCE SOCIETY. 
 
 157 
 
 sheep feet, and thirty-six cocks being provided for 
 this delicacy alone, at a court dinner in 1511. I 
 am not aware that the cock remains at the present 
 day a component part of our jellies : but perhaps I 
 am mistaken. Among the dishes not in use among 
 their unworthy descendants may be mentioned 
 swans and cranes, sea-gulls and porpoises. 
 
 With regard to the usual utensils of the table, it 
 may be necessary merely to mention that in the year 
 1430, there were imported from London, for the 
 use of the King of Scots, eight dozen of pewter 
 dishes, and a hundred dozen of wooden cups ; besides 
 a basin and ewer, three saddles, a dozen skins of 
 red leather, five dozen ells of woollen cloth, and 
 twenty casks of wine. 
 
 Morrison, the traveller whose authority I have 
 already quoted, accuses the citizens of Edinburgh 
 of a habit of washing down their coarse food with 
 copious draughts of wine or ale. The excess of 
 drinking, he says, was far greater among the Scots 
 than the English; and indeed, so indifferent was 
 the character of the former in this respect, that 
 being one evening, while at court, invited to sup 
 with some gentlemen, he exacted a promise before 
 consenting, that he should not be forced to drink 
 more than he thought proper. 
 
 At that time almost all the men of the lower 
 classes wore coarse home-spun cloth, of a grey or light 
 blue colour, with blue caps very broad and flat. In 
 some districts the costume continues the same to 
 this day. " The gentlemen did wear English cloth, 
 p 
 
153 
 
 DRESS. 
 
 or silks, or light stuff's, little or nothing adorned 
 w ith silk lace, much less with lace of silver or gold, 
 and all followed, at this time, the French fashion, 
 especially in court. Gentlewomen married did wear 
 close upper bodices after the German manner, with 
 large whale-bone sleeves, after the French manner, 
 short cloaks like the Germans, French hoods, and 
 large falling bands about their necks. The unmar- 
 ried of all sorts did go bare headed, and wore short 
 cloaks, with most close linen sleeves on their arms, 
 like the virgins of Germany. The inferior sort of 
 citizen's wives, and the women of the country, 
 did wear cloaks made of a coarse stuff, of two or 
 three colours, in chequer work, vulgarly called 
 Plodan." 
 
 The plodan (plaiding) was probably the only part 
 of the dress of home manufacture ; and the Scots 
 being too poor to enter prudently into a fashionable 
 competition with other nations, the ambitious spirits 
 among them were restrained by sumptuary laws. 
 Besides stuffs and haberdashery, Scotland imported 
 iron, lead, horse-furniture, military weapons, cart- 
 wheels, and, as we have seen, even pewter and 
 wooden dishes. In return for these she had only to 
 give wool, hides, coals, and salted salmon. 
 
 A people like the Scots were of all others the 
 most likely to adopt the customs of chivalry, and 
 run into all their excesses ; and accordingly we find 
 jousts and tournaments very common among them 
 in the middle ages. The same enthusiasm of cha- 
 racter, however, degraded those splendid shows into 
 
REFORMATION. 
 
 159 
 
 fields of blood ; and it happened frequently that the 
 " high-born damsel " who came to admire the accom- 
 plishments, witnessed the death of her lover. The 
 battle of Flodden, I need hardly remind the reader, 
 was fought by James IV. at the command of his 
 lady, the Queen of France ; and thus a gallant 
 prince, with the flower of his nobility,, and of their 
 vassals, perished the victims of a fantastic and 
 romantic honour. 
 
 The Queen of France, as Pitscottie informs us, 
 wrote a " love-letter " to King James, with a 
 turquois ring from her own linger, calling him her 
 love and her knight, and desiring him to raise her 
 an army, and advance three feet of ground into the 
 English territory, for her sake. James lost his life, 
 and Scotland her best and bravest, because he would 
 not refuse a mistress whom he had never seen ! 
 
 The Reformation plunged the city in a gloom very 
 unfavourable to the progress of luxury or refinement, 
 whatever effect it may have had on the piety of the 
 people. Anything beyond the severest style of 
 dress was reckoned not only an imprudence but a 
 sin ; and a smile seen on the face, on the Sabbath 
 day, was indicative of a soul already in the grasp of 
 the devil. The transgressions denounced in the 
 decalogue were multiplied to many thousands ; at 
 least each commandment was split into such innu- 
 merable sub-divisions that the greatest saint had no 
 more chance of escaping than the blackest sinner. 
 It was discovered that there were seven hundred 
 modes of sinning against the second commandment 
 
RESTORATION. 
 
 alone; and, in fact, to this day it is a favourite 
 exercise of the ingenuity of the Scottish ministers, 
 to find out new shades of offence that come within 
 the meaning of the penal laws of God. 
 
 The Restoration dissipated this unnatural gloom, 
 leaving little else behind it than a decent and 
 rational gravity, which has since been accounted 
 one of the characteristics of the Scottish nation. 
 At first, however, a reaction almost necessarily took 
 place ; and men rushed into the opposite extreme of 
 gaiety and pomp. In the year 1700 the Duke of 
 Queensberry, the king's commissioner, entered 
 Edinburgh with a train of forty coaches, and 
 twelve hundred horse. A public cock-pit was built 
 at Leith Links ; and so fierce had become the rage 
 for this amusement, that the magistrates of the city 
 were obliged to issue a proclamation to prevent its 
 being practised in the streets. Music, golf, tennis, 
 archery, were the other public recreations ; and men 
 seemed in haste to make up for the time they had 
 lost in fanaticism. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Yon beetling brow, 
 
 In craggy nakedness sublime, 
 
 What heart or foot shall dare to climb ? 
 
 Ichabod ! Ichabod ' Our glory hath departed ! 
 So might the Canongate and the High Street have 
 exclaimed, when all the rank and fashion of Edin- 
 burgh, deserting the ridge of the old town, as if 
 scared by the plague, rushed down the precipices, to 
 spread themselves in thousands over the northern 
 plain. The hotels of the nobility and gentry 
 changed lodgers, as if by magic ; and, were it not 
 that the vast and mighty outline of the buildings 
 remains the same — and probably will do so for cen- 
 turies to come — it is hardly likely that their former 
 occupants would know them again. 
 
 In the smaller streets, diverging from this grand 
 thoroughfare, the metamorphoses are only those of 
 p3 
 
162 
 
 VALLEY OF DEATH. 
 
 time and tide. Year after year the stones grow 
 blacker and the timber frailer ; and each succeeding 
 juvenile, as he grows up to the season of observation, 
 detects more of an old-world cast in the houses 
 than his antecedent. Of these avenues the West 
 Bow is the most picturesque, and the most antique ; 
 a fact of which the reader will not be inclined to 
 doubt, after casting his eye upon the opposite 
 view. 
 
 The West Bow is a steep, narrow, and curving 
 street, which forms the passage of communication 
 between the grand thoroughfare and the Grass 
 Market; an announcement which, in spite of the 
 rural and peaceable designation of the latter quarter, 
 will arouse in its behalf some portion of unpleasing 
 yet exciting interest. The Grass Market was the 
 place of public execution ; and the West Bow was 
 the avenue by which the dismal cortege descended 
 from the ridge of the mountain city into the valley 
 of the shadow of death. No sudden and extraor- 
 dinary change, I have said, was presented, in 
 modern times, by the aspect of this street. The 
 criminal, walking in his grave clothes between two 
 ministers, bade farewell, with a sinking heart, to 
 the well-known closes, the over-hanging balconies, 
 the black and mouldering walls — the haunts, 
 perhaps, of his profligacy, and the witnesses of his 
 crimes. He did not know, and would as little have 
 cared had he known, that in an earlier age those 
 lofty and uncouth edifices were the dwellings of a 
 very different grade of society ; and the iron crosses 
 
; nr. 
 
 mart 'Uid-L.TttLum VcLL.y.21S- 
 
GALLOWS-TREE. 
 
 163 
 
 in some of the walls had no power of association to 
 bring before his mind's eye the shadows of their 
 ancient denizens, the Knights Templars, and the 
 Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. 
 
 Emerging, at length, into the more open area of 
 the Grass-market, a wide oblong square, surrounded 
 by lofty but mean houses, an object near the further 
 end arrested his eye ; and, perhaps, at that moment 
 closed its sense against every other in this world. 
 It was the gallows-tree, tall and black, surrounded 
 by a scaffold, with a ladder placed against it for his 
 ascent. The scene was overhung by the bare, rude, 
 mountainous rock which forms the eastern termi- 
 nation of the city; and the battlements of the 
 castle, which rise above it, seem to guard sternly 
 and frowningly the place of death. 
 
 On one occasion the Grass Market was filled by 
 an expectant crowd, who looked for the approach of 
 the criminal, not with the usual feeling of pity and 
 horror, but with the thirsty eagerness of a bird of 
 prey awaiting its quarry. He had been condemned 
 for a crime which had made every individual of that 
 vast multitude his deadly enemy ; the gallows-tree 
 had risen, as usual, before the dawn, on its accus- 
 tomed spot ; the whole city had crowded, not riotously, 
 but with a stern gravity, to witness the consumma- 
 tion of a revenge sanctified by the laws ; the hour 
 was come — but not the man. 
 
 It is this day which my distinguished associate 
 has desired to commemorate in the annexed view. 
 The disappointed spectators are climbing their way 
 
1G4 
 
 PORTEUS INSURRECTION. 
 
 homewards by the steep and tortuous ascent of the 
 West Bow ; and in front are the personages intro- 
 duced so happily by Scott, as a relief to the sombre 
 sternness of the scene. When Saddletree had 
 exhausted his legal, and Mr. Butler his scholastic 
 learning, the result of the conference, however 
 differently expressed, was the same in substance in 
 this as in every other group m the street. 
 
 " ' Aweel/ said Mrs. Howden, ' the sum o' the 
 matter is, that were I a man, I wad hae amends o' 
 Jack Porteous, be the upshot what like o't, if a' the 
 carles and carlines in England had sworn to the 
 nay-say/ 
 
 " ' I would claw down the Tolbooth door wi' my 
 nails,' said Miss Grizell, ' but I would be at him.' 
 
 " r Ye may be very right, ladies,' said Butler, 
 ' but I would not advise you to speak so loud.' 
 
 " ' Speak ! ' exclaimed both the ladies together, 
 ' there will be naething else spoken about frae the 
 Weigh-house to the Water-port, till this is either 
 ended or mended.' " 
 
 The sequel of the story is well known, indepen- 
 dently of the Tales of my Landlord. The populace 
 of Edinburgh rose up that night like one man • 
 they broke open the doors of the Tolbooth ; marched 
 their prisoner, slowly and gravely, to the place of 
 - public execution, providing him, as usual, with the 
 means of ghostly comfort ; hanged him by the neck, in 
 terms of the law, upon a gibbet, with a rope which 
 they bought and paid for ; and then dispersed 
 without having, in any other respect, perpetrated a 
 
HOLYROODHOUSE. 
 
 165 
 
 single injury, or even insult. There seems to me, 
 notwithstanding the difference in the nature and 
 magnitude of the objects, to be a striking resem- 
 blance between the conduct of the people on this 
 occasion and that of the Parisians at the late revo- 
 lution. In neither case was there premeditation. 
 The insurrection of both was commenced by a few, 
 and seconded, on the instant, by their fellow-citizens. 
 The same cool and stern intrepidity was manifested 
 by both ; and the same determination that the 
 object in view should not be degraded by, or mingled 
 with, any of the meaner outrages that usually 
 accompany the ebullitions of popular feeling. 
 
 Having given a general glance at the city, it re- 
 mains for me to devote a few moments to the Abbey 
 and the Castle, the alpha and omega of the old 
 town of Edinburgh. 
 
 Holyroodhouse, the palace of the Scottish kings, 
 was originally a convent (as its popular name of the 
 Abbey implies), founded by David I. It originated, 
 as is usual with such buildings, in a miracle. The 
 prince was in danger of perishing through the fury of 
 a stag which had turned to bay, when a miraculous 
 cross rose up between and saved him. When the 
 church of the Holy Rood arose on this spot, David 
 granted it to the canons regular of Saint Augustin, 
 with a thousand immunities and privileges, not the 
 least singular of which was the tithe of the whales 
 and sea monsters taken on the coast from the river 
 Almond to Colbrand's Path. 
 
 It is uncertain when the monastery became a 
 
166 
 
 FATALITY. 
 
 royal residence ; but we know that it was inhabited 
 by James IV., and that the buildings called Queen 
 Mary's apartments were built by James V. Soon 
 after this addition was made, the whole was burnt 
 by the English in 1544 ; but like other Gothic edi- 
 fices, (in cases where gunpowder was not employed 
 for their destruction) the injury it sustained from 
 such a disaster was comparatively trifling. At the 
 Reformation, the monastery was, of course, entirely 
 suppressed ; but the buildings remained a royal re- 
 sidence. 
 
 In the year 1650, the palace was again burnt by 
 the English, and this time with better success ; for 
 all was destroyed except one tower, and the adjoin- 
 ing buildings, the apartments of Queen Mary. A 
 new palace was erected on the site by Charles II ; 
 which is the Holyroodhouse of to-day. The chapel 
 was also repaired, and fitted up anew ; but James 
 II., with the madness (or piety !) of his devoted 
 family, held in it publicly the idolatrous orgies of 
 the mass — as his subjects called them — and hurried 
 on an insurrection of the citizens, in the course of 
 which the whole interior was destroyed. Another 
 attempt was made to repair it, and a new roof was 
 thrown over its walls of six hundred years. But 
 the fiat had gone forth. The architects were in- 
 spired with a spirit of absurdity to which there is 
 no parallel in the history of the art. They imposed 
 upon the ancient walls a roof of solid stone ; and in 
 two years after the whole structure fell to the 
 ground. The ruins which remain are beautiful and 
 
RIZIO. 
 
 167 
 
 picturesque ; and since it has now become impos- 
 sible merely to repair and preserve, I sincerely hope 
 that the rage for improvement will leave them so. 
 
 The ancient part of the palace, containing the 
 apartments of Mary, remains to this day in the same 
 state as when the Rose of Scotland was transplanted 
 to the cell, where she was destined to wither and 
 die. The reader is presented with a view of one of 
 these chambers. It is small — it does not boast of 
 anything resembling regal magnificence : yet let him 
 look well. This is a corner famous in history. Here 
 perhaps was decided the fate of the queen of Scots. 
 The area of that small room is crowded with sha- 
 dows ; its roof rings with the screams of beauty, 
 the imprecations of murder, the groans of death ; 
 its floor, saturated with blood, retains to this hour 
 the "damned spot." 
 
 I do not say with Robertson that (C the low birth 
 and indigent condition of Rizio placed him in a sta- 
 tion in which he ought naturally to have remained 
 unknown to posterity;" nor do I think it any "con- 
 descension" whatever in the historian " to record his 
 adventures." I do not say or think these things, 
 because 1 have read, among others, the histories 
 which that elegant and careful author wrote ; and 
 I am therefore aware of the important parts which 
 men of low birth and indigent condition are some- 
 times called upon, by their fate or genius, to per- 
 form. Rizio, however, was not one of those sons of 
 destiny who rise above their fellows by the force of 
 courage or talent. He was in all probability a man 
 
168 
 
 DARNLEY. 
 
 of elegant tastes, showy acquirements, and prepos- 
 sessing manners : but he was nothing more. His 
 ambition was bounded by the desire to retain the 
 queen's favour, and to shew the whole nation the 
 lofty pinnacle on which he stood. This is decisive 
 with regard to his character : he was low born in 
 mind as well as body : no great man was ever fond 
 of parade or fine clothes. 
 
 In the palace of a young and beautiful queen, 
 however, who had been brought up at a court where 
 accomplishments passed for virtues, Rizio speedily 
 rose to distinction. It matters not what was his 
 original rank : the lower the better ; for the con- 
 trast between him and his fellows would make the 
 soft and subtle Italian stand out in still higher re- 
 lief. At any rate, he became Mary's secretary — her 
 confidant — -her favourite ; and, by a natural conse- 
 quence, he became an object of detestation to every 
 body but those who expected to rise through his 
 interest. 
 
 The proximate cause of the king's deadly hate has 
 often been sought after by historians ; but it is dif- 
 ficult to trace to its motives the waywardness of a 
 spoiled boy. Darnley was born only a fool ; but 
 personal vanity, uniting with the prodigious fortune 
 which had befallen him, tinged his folly with a cer- 
 tain hue of madness. But for this he would have 
 been a puppet in the hands of his more talented 
 wife ; and the life of Mary would have been as 
 tranquil, and her conduct, perhaps as prudent, as 
 those of other women who are blest with obedient 
 husbands. 
 
mary's boudoir. 
 
 169 
 
 But it is needless to imagine what might have 
 been. We have now before us the small, private, 
 retired apartment of Mary, adjoining her bed cham- 
 ber. It is called a "cabinet" in history ; and perhaps 
 was all she could boast of as a boudoir — a room, a 
 closet, no matter what — where a woman retires from 
 the weariness of society, to pout, to sigh, or to 
 weep, to hope or remember, to joy or grieve ; a cor- 
 ner, in short, which is her own, and where no one 
 can enter unsummoned. 
 
 On the ninth of March, in the year one thousand, 
 live hundred and sixty-six, the arrangements of that 
 little room were somewhat different. The heavy 
 table which you see on the right was in the middle 
 of the floor ; and the rich, antique-looking chair by 
 the side of the fire-place was at the head of that 
 table. Thereon Mary sat ; and around the board 
 were five other chairs, and five of those flattering 
 illusions whom a queen calls friends. One of them 
 was her secretary, Rizio. 
 
 It is seven o'clock in the evening. The song, the 
 tale, the jest have gone round. The poor and low- 
 born Italian feels an intoxication, finer, more delicate, 
 yet more intense, than wine could produce. The 
 beautiful queen is happy: — I do not recall the word; 
 she forgets the past, she dreams not of the future — 
 she enjoys, and therefore is she happy. Hark ! 
 There is a noise without — a dull, harsh, yet quick, 
 disagreeable sound. Look towards the door. Who 
 is there ? Shadows ! shadows ! — dim, flitting, inde- 
 finite. I must have recourse to the master-seer, to 
 Q 
 
170 
 
 SPECTRES OF HISTORY. 
 
 whom is given, not only to behold, but to command, 
 the spectres of history. 
 
 u There comes the fierce fanatic Ruthven — party 
 hatred enabling him to bear the armour which would 
 otherwise weigh down a form extenuated by wasting 
 disease. See how his writhen features show under 
 the hollow helmet, like those of a corpse tenanted by 
 a demon, whose vindictive purpose looks out at the 
 flashing eyes, while the visage has the stillness of 
 death. Yonder appears the tall form of the boy 
 Darnley, as goodly in person as vascillating in reso- 
 lution ; yonder he advances with hesitating step, and 
 yet more hesitating purpose, his childish form having 
 already overcome his childish passion. * * * 
 
 " Summon up the Postulate, George Douglas, the 
 most active of the gang. Let him arise at your 
 call — the claimant of wealth which he does not pos- 
 sess — the partaker of the illustrious blood of Douglas, 
 but which in his veins is sullied with illegitimacy. 
 Paint him the ruthless, the daring, the ambitious — 
 so nigh greatness, yet debarred from it — so near to 
 wealth, yet excluded from possessing it — a political 
 Tantalus, ready to do or dare anything to terminate 
 his necessities, and assert his imperfect claims. * * * 
 
 " Who comes next ? Yon tall, thin-made, savage- 
 looking man, with the petronel in his hand, must 
 be Andrew Ker, of Faldonside, a brother's son, I 
 believe, of the celebrated Sir David Ker, of Cessford ; 
 his look and bearing those of a border freebooter ; his 
 
MURDER. 
 
 171 
 
 disposition so savage, that during the fray in the 
 cabinet, he presented his loaded piece at the bosom 
 of the young and beautiful queen, that queen also 
 being within a few weeks of becoming a mother !" 
 
 Behind these were many other phantom-like 
 heads ; and Mary could see that the eyes of all were 
 bent with a steady glare upon Rizio. With the 
 presence of mind, however, which rarely forsook her, 
 she demanded the purport of their coming. The 
 victim read the answer in their eyes, before their 
 lips had shaped the words ; and he ran behind his 
 mistress, and took hold of the folds of her gown. 
 
 The " divinity that doth hedge a king" was 
 unknown in Scotland. Mary had only her beauty, 
 her tears, her prayers, her shrieks, to interpose; and 
 these were unavailing. Darnley, who had forced on 
 the work of murder, and had repeatedly threatened 
 to do the deed himself, and unassisted, stood hesi- 
 tating, terrified, open-mouthed, gazing on the scene 
 like a man in a dream ; when the Postulate, Douglas, 
 snatched his dagger from the king's girdle, and 
 struck it into the body of the secretary, almost in 
 the arms of his royal mistress. The signal was given. 
 Rizio was dragged through the apartment into the 
 adjoining bedchamber, and to the head of the staircase; 
 where he fell, after having received fifty-six wounds. 
 Mary continued to weep, to struggle, to scream; 
 but when she learnt that all was over, she dried her 
 eyes ; and sat calmly down. " It shall be dear blood 
 to some of you!" muttered she ; a speech that was 
 remembered eleven months after, when Darnley 
 
172 
 
 THE ROSE OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 received a still more sudden death in the Kirk of 
 Field. 
 
 We now enter the room into which Rizio was 
 dragged from her presence — the bedchamber of the 
 queen. The furniture is the same as when Mary 
 slept in it ; and part of the drapery was wrought by 
 her own hand. 
 
 It is impossible to contemplate this spot without 
 emotion. Of all the personages of history, Mary- 
 Stewart, at the distance of two centuries and a half, 
 is the nearest and most palpable. There are few of 
 our Scottish youths who have not fought for her, as 
 for a lovely and calumniated mistress. I myself, 
 when a boy, have more than once been covered with 
 blood in her cause. 
 
 Mary's life was a series of calamities : and yet, 
 perhaps, were the computation accurately made up, 
 she enjoyed more of happiness than her prosperous 
 rival. Her brief, but frequent gleams of sunshine 
 were bright and beautiful. She enjoyed the triumphs 
 of love and beauty ; at the most disatrous period of 
 her life she was surrounded by warm and faithful 
 friends ; her death was religious, tranquil, almost 
 joyful. Elizabeth, on the contrary, though a great 
 and fortunate queen, was an unhappy woman. Her 
 life was spent in a struggle against nature; and when 
 -the dreams of ambition were dissipated by the ap- 
 proach of death, she found that her existence had 
 been a blank. The discovery was made too late. The 
 years that had fled could not be recalled — nor the 
 blood of Essex, which she had spilt ; and she closed 
 
EDINBURGH CASTLE. 
 
 173 
 
 a loveless, joyless, yet brilliant existence, in melan- 
 choly and despair. 
 
 The Castle, at the opposite, or western extremity 
 of the Old Town, is situated upon a precipitous rock 
 three hundred feet high, and accessible only from the 
 east. The walls comprehend an area of about six 
 acres, and the arsenal, together with the other apart- 
 ments appropriated for the same purpose, is capable 
 of containing thirty thousand stand of arms. The 
 buildings surround a square court, the east side 
 having formerly been the royal apartments. It was 
 here, in a small room on the ground floor, that Mary, 
 on the 19th of June, 1566, was delivered of the heir 
 of the two kingdoms. 
 
 The history of the Castle is of course the history 
 of Edinburgh ; and the history of Edinburgh, under 
 the later princes, is that of the whole country. I am 
 unable, therefore, to give even a sketch of the vicis- 
 situdes of this fortress ; but I cannot refrain from 
 referring to an incident which occurred during the 
 reign of Bruce — and which, besides, will serve as an 
 introduction to some account of the arms and military 
 habits of the Scots. 
 
 The Castle at that time was strongly garrisoned 
 by the English, and commanded by Piers Leland, a 
 Lombard. This man would appear to have had but 
 little liking to the cause : at least, in some way or 
 other, he became an object of suspicion to the gar- 
 rison ; and when Randolph, the celebrated Earl of 
 Moray, appeared before the fortress, he was laid hold 
 of, and shut up in a dungeon. The Scots, however, 
 Q 3 
 
174 
 
 IMPREGNABLE ROCK. 
 
 received no advantage from the confusion which this 
 proceeding must have occasioned ; a new governor 
 was elected whose courage and fidelity were un- 
 doubted ; and, as Randolph gazed upon the magni- 
 ficent rock, accessible only from one quarter, and in 
 that quarter so completely defended as to be altoge- 
 ther impregnable, he felt that his errand would be 
 in vain. 
 
 In the history of fortresses like this we usually 
 find, that if captured at all, it is by an attack upon 
 precisely that point where the attempt seems not 
 only hopeless but absurd. In the present case, it is 
 unknown whether the Scottish earl, while gazing at 
 the bare, rugged, and in some places perpendicular 
 surface of the rock, allowed even the idea to enter his 
 mind of an exploit which must have seemed impos- 
 sible even to a wild goat. While in this occupation, 
 however, he was accosted by one of his men-at-arms 
 with the question, "Do you think it impracticable, my 
 lord?" Randolph turned his eyes upon the querist, 
 a man a little past the prime of life, but of a firm, 
 well-knit figure, and bearing in his bright eye, and 
 bold and open brow, indications of an intrepidity 
 which had already made him remarkable in the 
 Scottish army. 
 
 . " Do you mean the rock, Francis?" said the earl; 
 " Perhaps not — if we could borrow the wings of our 
 gallant hawks." 
 
 " There are wings," replied Francis, with a 
 thoughtful smile, "as strong, as buoyant, and as 
 daring. My father was keeper of yonder fortress." 
 
WINGS OF LOVE. 
 
 175 
 
 " What of that ? you speak in riddles." 
 
 " I was then young, reckless, high-hearted ; I was 
 mewed up in that convent-like castle ; my mistress 
 was in the plain below — " 
 
 " Well, what then ?" 
 
 " 'S death, my Lord, can you not imagine that I 
 speak of the wings of love? Every night I des- 
 cended that steep at the witching hour, and every 
 morning, before the dawn, I crept back to my bar- 
 racks. I constructed a light twelve-foot ladder, by 
 means of which I was able to pass the places that are 
 perpendicular ; and so well, at length, did I become 
 acquainted with the route, that in the darkest and 
 stormiest night, I found my way as easily as when 
 the moonlight enabled me to see my love in the 
 distance, waiting for me at her cottage door." 
 
 " You are a daring, desperate — noble fellow, 
 Francis! However, your motive is now gone; your 
 mistress " — 
 
 " She is dead : say no more : but another has 
 taken her place." 
 
 " Ay, ay, it is the soldier's way. Women will 
 die, or even grow old, and what are we to do? 
 Come, who is your mistress now ?" 
 
 " My country. What I have done for love, I 
 can do again for honour ; and what / can accom- 
 plish, you, noble Randolph, and many of our com- 
 rades, can do far better. Give me thirty picked 
 men, and a twelve-foot ladder, and the fortress is 
 our own I" 
 
 The Earl of Moray, whatever his real thoughts 
 
176 
 
 DESPERATE ADVENTURE. 
 
 of the enterprise might have been, was not a man to 
 refuse such a challenge. A ladder was provided, 
 and thirty men chosen from the troops ; and in the 
 middle of a dark night, the party, commanded by 
 Randolph himself, and guided by William Francis, 
 set forth on their desperate enterprise. 
 
 By catching at crag after crag, and digging their 
 fingers into the interstices of the rock, they suc- 
 ceeded in mounting a considerable way ; but the 
 weather was now so thick, they could receive but 
 little assistance from their eyes ; and thus they con- 
 tinued to climb, almost in utter darkness, like men 
 struggling up a precipice in the night-mare. They 
 at length reached a shelving table of the cliff, above 
 which the ascent, for ten or twelve feet, was perpen- 
 dicular ; and having fixed their ladder, the whole 
 party lay down to recover breath. 
 
 From this place they could hear the tread and 
 voices of the " check- watches," or patrol, above ; 
 and surrounded by the perils of such a moment, it is 
 not wonderful that some illusions may have mingled 
 with their thoughts. They even imagined that they 
 were seen from the battlements ; although, being 
 themselves unable to see the warders, this was highly 
 improbable. It became evident, notwithstanding, 
 .from the words they caught, here and there, in the 
 pauses of the night-wind, that the conversation of the 
 English soldiers above, related to a surprise of the 
 castle ; and, at length, these appalling words broke 
 like thunder on their ears — 
 
 " Stand ! I see you well V A fragment of the 
 
HELPLESS SITUATION. 
 
 177 
 
 rock was hurled down at the same instant ; and, as 
 rushing from crag to crag, it bounded over their 
 heads, Randolph and his brave followers, in this 
 wild, helpless, and extraordinary situation, felt the 
 damps of mortal terror gathering upon their brow, 
 as they clung, with a death-grip, to the precipice. 
 
 The startled echoes of the rock were at length 
 silent, and so were the voices above. The adven- 
 turers paused, listening breathless ; no sound was 
 heard but the sighing of the wind, and the measured 
 tread of the sentinel, who had resumed his walk. 
 The men thought they were in a dream, and no 
 wonder ; for the incident just mentioned, which is 
 related by Barbour, was one of the most singular 
 coincidences that ever occurred. The shout of the 
 sentinel, and the missile he had thrown, were merely 
 a boyish freak ; and, while listening to the echoes of 
 the rock, he had not the smallest idea that the 
 sounds which gave pleasure to him, carried terror 
 and almost despair into the hearts of the enemy. 
 
 The adventurers, half uncertain whether they 
 were not the victims of some illusion, determined 
 that it was as safe to go on as to turn back ; and, 
 pursuing their laborious and dangerous path, they at 
 length reached the bottom of the wall. This last 
 barrier they scaled by means of their ladder ; and, 
 leaping down among the astonished check-watches, 
 they cried their war-cry, and, in the midst of 
 answering shouts of " treason ! treason !** notwith- 
 standing the desperate resistance of the garrison, 
 captured the Castle of Edinburgh. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Why do these steeds stand ready dight? 
 Why watch these warriors arm'd by night 1 
 They watch to hear the blood hound baying; 
 They watch to hear the war-horn braying ; 
 To see St. George's red cross streaming; 
 To see the midnight beacon gleaming. 
 
 The arms used at different epochs by this 
 warlike people would of themselves be a fertile 
 subject for inquiry ; but in a work like this I can 
 afford only such brief notice as may be necessary 
 towards giving the reader some idea of the military 
 habits of the Scots. 
 
 The principal weapons of the Caledonians were 
 swords and targets ; the former long, unwieldy, and 
 blunt at the point ; and the latter so small as to 
 form a very imperfect defence for the wearer in 
 close combat. They appear, however, not to have 
 fought in a compact mass, such as is denominated an 
 army ; for they are described as being accustomed 
 
ARMS AND THE MEN. 
 
 179 
 
 to elude with great dexterity the missiles of the 
 Romans, discharging, at the same time, a shower of 
 their own. They probably ventured as rarely as 
 possible into personal contact with the steel-clad 
 men of Italy, contenting themselves with the irre- 
 gular warfare of mountaineers; but occasional 
 exceptions were made to this rule, and the great 
 fight between Agricola and Galgacus presents the 
 curious and magnificent spectacle, of an army of 
 savages set down in pitched battle against nearly 
 an equal numerical force of trained soldiers. The 
 Caledonians were of course beaten, and Tacitus 
 describes the loss of the Romans as being inconsi- 
 derable ; yet Agricola abandoned instantly his 
 northern expedition, and returned to his entrench- 
 ments at Ardoch. 
 
 In addition to swords and targets, our ancestors 
 used also spears and javelins, and bows and arrows, 
 headed with flint or bone. Archery thus is very 
 ancient in Scotland, although the art was never 
 cultivated with effect. But this ought not to 
 appear so surprising as it is generally thought. 
 The mountainous nature of the country, as well as 
 their own fiery temperament, led the Scots to 
 depend more upon a sudden charge of men than a 
 a distant flight of arrows. The bowmen in the 
 English army were regular soldiers of the plains : 
 they marched in a compact body, and fired their 
 deadly shafts in a simultaneous shower. They won 
 almost every battle lost by the Scots ; but so extra- 
 ordinary a prestige seems to have existed on the 
 
180 
 
 LIVING PICTURE. 
 
 subject, that the latter neither attempted seriously 
 to learn the use of the weapon, nor even adopted 
 always the obvious expedient for counteracting its 
 effect in battle. Bruce, in fact, was almost the only 
 general who provided beforehand a body of horse to 
 break the ranks of the archers ; and, had not this 
 manoeuvre been executed at Bannockburn, the 
 Scottish authors of the present day would perhaps 
 have taken very little pleasure in calling to mind the 
 history of their country. 
 
 The graphic power of Scott is no where else 
 exhibited to more advantage than in the descrip- 
 tion of this incident in the Lord of the Isles. The 
 picture lives, and moves, and hath its being. We 
 see the yeomen "stepping forth a space/' and 
 drawing the bow-string to their ear; we hear the 
 rushing of ten thousand arrows through the air ; we 
 can as little as Edward Bruce restrain our im- 
 patience, when he stands 
 
 With foot on stirrup, hand on mane, 
 
 watching the advance of the deadly enemy into the 
 plain ; and it is with a bound, almost as lofty as 
 his, that we hear at length his " Mount, ye gallants 
 free I" 
 
 He cried ; and, vaulting from the ground, 
 His saddle every horseman found. 
 On high their glittering crests they toss, 
 As springs the wild-fire from the moss; 
 The shield hangs down on every breast, 
 Each ready lance is in the rest, 
 
ARCHERY. 
 
 181 
 
 And loud shouts Edward Bruce, — 
 Forth, marshal, on the peasant foe ! 
 We ll tame the terrors of their bow, 
 
 And cut the bow-string loose ! " 
 
 Several of the Scottish princes, especially those 
 who had an opportunity of seeing the practice of 
 archery in England, did every thing in their power 
 to encourage it at home. James I. in his poem of 
 Christ's Kirk on the Green, tried the effects of ri- 
 dicule. His penal statute, to which we have already 
 alluded, ran thus : 
 
 ce That all men busk thame to be archares fra the 
 be 12 years of age, and that at ilk ten pounds worth 
 of land thair be made bow markes, and speciallie 
 near paroche kirks, quhairn upon halie days men 
 may cum, and at the leist schute thryse about, and 
 have usage of archarie ; and quhasa usis not archa- 
 rie, the laird of the land sail rais of him a 
 wedder ; and giff the laird raisis not the said pane, 
 the king's shirefF, or his ministers sail rais it to 
 the king." 
 
 It does not appear that this law had ever any con- 
 siderable effect ; for the king dying soon after, it fell 
 into disuse. 
 
 From an anecdote told by Pitscottie of the reign 
 of James V., it would seem at first sight that we 
 were then better archers ; the Scottish party being 
 represented as worsting the English at a trial of 
 skill proposed by the queen mother. The proposal 
 was made, however, in favour to the English " be- 
 cause she was the king of England's sister which 
 
 R 
 
182 CLERICAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 
 
 shows that the superiority of her countrymen was 
 generally allowed. The success of the Scots, there- 
 fore, may be attributed to accident — or perhaps to 
 the partiality of the historian ; for Pitscottie gives us 
 to understand that this trial was resorted to as a 
 sure means of the English regaining their character, 
 which had been sadly damaged in every other kind 
 of encounter. The queen wagered a hundred crowns 
 and a tun of wine ; and the king her son having ac- 
 cepted the bet, the match was shot and won at St. 
 Andrews, by six Scots against the English. Perhaps 
 they were the only half dozen men in the kingdom 
 who knew so well the use of the weapon. It is 
 curious to observe that in Pitscottie's account of the 
 queen's party, which included a bishop, he says they 
 were all "able and waled men for all kinds of games 
 and pastimes, shooting, leaping, running, wrestling, 
 and casting of the stone while one of the six 
 Scottish archers was " Mr. John Wedderburn, vicar 
 of Dundee." 
 
 Long after the use of bows and arrows, superseded 
 by that of muskets and bullets, had been abandoned 
 in the low country it was still preserved in the high- 
 lands. In the reign of Charles II. the laird of 
 Mackintosh marched to Lochaber, at the head of a 
 body of fifteen hundred men, composed of his own 
 ' clan and that of Macpherson, to fight Lochiel, who 
 met him with nine hundred Camerons and three 
 hundred JMacgre^ors. The number of bowmen on 
 both sides was three hundred. This engagement 
 was prevented by the earl of Breadalbane, who inter- 
 
ETIQUETTE. 
 
 183 
 
 posed, with five hundred men at his back, in the 
 words of Douglas — 
 
 — the first who strikes makes me his foe ! 
 
 but on another occasion the same chief received a 
 bitter taste of the arrows of the highlanders. 
 
 This occurred on the return homeward of a party 
 of the Macdonalds of Glenco from a foray in the 
 lowlands. They attempted to pass through Bread- 
 albane without requesting permission of the lord of 
 the land — the same stout Campbell, I believe, who 
 conquered, without being able to keep, Caithness : 
 and the youth of a wedding party, then dancing at 
 Finlarig, and probably the elite of the whole dis- 
 trict, firing at the insult, immediately flew to arms. 
 They attacked the Macdonalds with great fury, near 
 the village of Killin ; but the bold reivers of Locha- 
 ber, receiving them with a shower of arrows, drove 
 them back with immense loss. Nineteen young gen- 
 tlemen of the name of Campbell fell on that luckless 
 day ; and Colonel Menzies of Culdares, a distin- 
 guished soldier of the civil wars, whose advice to 
 attack in flank, rather than in front, they had disre- 
 garded in their generous rage, received nine arrow 
 wounds. 
 
 Later still we find bows and arrows used at the 
 battle of Auldearn, according to a note in Hogg's 
 Jacobite Relics. In the reign of William III. the 
 grenadiers of the Highland regiments, when recruit- 
 ing, carried these ancient weapons in their hands ; 
 
184 
 
 SPEARS. 
 
 and in Hume's History of the Rebellion, we meet 
 with the curious spectacle of a clergyman marching 
 up to the altar to perform divine service with a bow 
 in his hand, and arrows stuck in a silken sash tied 
 round his waist. The highland bows were made of 
 yew, and, compared with the English, short and 
 weak. 
 
 The Scots, while admitting proverbially that 
 " every English archer beareth under his girdle 
 twenty-four Scots," yet preferred trusting themselves 
 in battle to their spears and axes.* The spear was 
 appointed by act of parliament in 1471, to be eigh- 
 teen feet six inches long ; and a body of men armed 
 with this weapon, and standing in compact array as 
 was their custom, although presenting a broad mark 
 to the archers, stood unmoved even against an attack 
 of cavalry. Their military discipline is thus described 
 by Patten, who was joined in commission with Cecil 
 during the Protector's expedition into Scotland, in 
 1547. 
 
 " But what after I learned, specially touching 
 their order, their armour, and their manner, as well 
 of going to offend, as of standing to defend, I have 
 
 * The French did not much affect archery any more than the Scots. 
 The cross-bowmen and archers in their armies were mostly foreigners; 
 and the former were at one time excommunicated by the pope for using 
 -arms of too murderous a nature. In the Ribliotheque da Roi,I have seen 
 a drawing of Gaignieres, portfolio of the fourteenth century, in which the 
 arbaletrier is represented concealing himself behind an immense shield, 
 after having shot his arrow. The bows of the archers, according to the 
 same authority, were as tall as the men themselves; and it is mentioned 
 in the " Proprietaire des Choses," that it was customary to poison the 
 arrows. This practice may have descended to them from the Franks. 
 
MILITARY DISCIPLINE. 
 
 185 
 
 thought necessary here to utter. Hackbutters have 
 they few or none, and appoint their fight most com- 
 monly always afoot. They come to the field well 
 furnished all with jack and skull, dagger and buck- 
 ler, and swords all broad and thin, of exceeding good 
 temper, and universally so made to slice, that as I 
 never saw none so good, so I think it hard to devise 
 the better. Hereto every man his pike, and a great 
 kircher wrapped twice or thrice about his neck, not 
 for cold, but for cutting. 
 
 " In their array towards joining with the enemy 
 they cling and thrust so near in the fore-rank, 
 shoulder and shoulder together, with their pikes in 
 both their hands straight afore them, and their fol- 
 lowers in that order so hard at their backs, laying 
 their pikes over their foregoers' shoulders, that, if 
 they do assail undiscovered, no force can well with- 
 stand them. Standing at defence they thrust 
 shoulders likewise so nigh together, the fore-rank 
 well nigh to kneeling, stoop low before, their fellows 
 behind holding their pikes with both hands, and 
 therewith in the left their bucklers, the one end 
 of their pikes against the right foot, and the other 
 against the enemy breast high ; their followers cros- 
 sing their pike points with them forward ; and thus 
 each with other so nigh as space and place will 
 surfer, through the whole ward, so thick, that as 
 easily shall a bare finger pierce through the skin of 
 an angry hedgehog, as any encounter the front of 
 their pikes." 
 
 The mace also was sometimes used ; with cross- 
 
 R 3 
 
186 
 
 FIRE ARMS. 
 
 bows for missiles. The burgesses were armed like 
 the yeomen ; but their body armour — plate-jack, 
 hauberk, or brigantine, was directed to be of bright 
 metal, and their head-gear to consist of a bright 
 steel cap, without crest or vizor. 
 
 Fire arms were known in Scotland from the time 
 of David Bruce ; and a statute of the second James 
 proves that in his reign they had begun to be used 
 in the field. After directing the pieces to be pro- 
 vided, the statute proceeds to order some person to 
 be got to shoot them j " and gif they have no craft 
 in the schuting of them, as now they may leir or the 
 tyme cum that will be needful to thame." Culverins 
 appeared at the battle of Flodden, under James IV. ; 
 and his successor rendered general over Scotland the 
 use of a rude artillery. The clergy were required 
 to furnish guns according to their temporal lands ; 
 even ladies " of conjunct-free and life-rent " paid a 
 sum in proportion to their income for the same 
 purpose. The barons instructed their vassals in the 
 use of these important engines ; and in every parish 
 a captain was chosen by the magistrates and the 
 king's commissioners to exercise the people. 
 
 Perhaps the reader will not be displeased to be 
 enabled to compare with the picture presented by 
 Patten, the account which Froissart gives of the 
 , Scottish soldiers in their incursions into England. 
 " Their knights and esquires," says he, " are well 
 mounted on great coursers ; the common sort, and 
 the country people, ride little horses. They take no 
 carriages with them by reason of the unevenness of 
 
MILITARY COOKERY. 
 
 187 
 
 the ground among the hills of Northumberland, 
 through which their road lies ; neither do they make 
 provision of bread or wine ; for such is their abste- 
 miousness, that in war they are wont for a conside- 
 rable space of time contentedly to eat flesh half 
 dressed, without bread, and to drink river water 
 without wine. Neither have they any use for ket- 
 tles and cauldrons ; for after they have flead the 
 cattle which they take, they have their own mode of 
 dressing them. They are sure of finding abundance 
 of cattle in the country through which they mean to 
 go, and therefore they make no farther provision. 
 Every man carries about the saddle of his horse a 
 great flat plate, and he trusses behind him a wallet 
 full of meal, the purpose of which is this : after a 
 Scottish soldier has eaten flesh so long that he 
 begins to loath it, he throws this plate into the fire, 
 then moistens a little of his meal in water, and when 
 the plate is once heated, he lays his paste upon it, 
 and makes a little cake, which he eats to comfort his 
 stomach." 
 
 The mode of dressing the food to which Frois- 
 sart alludes, was boiling, or rather heating it in 
 a cauldron composed of the hide of the animal fixed 
 to four stakes, and so suspended above the fire. A 
 still more concise method of cooking venison, prac- 
 tised by the Scots, without the aid of fire at all, but 
 by the simple expression of the blood, is described 
 in Brantome's Vies des Hommes Illustres, and in 
 the romance of Perceforet. In the latter work, a 
 Scottish knight-errant puts the haunch between 
 
188 
 
 CHARGE OF HIGHLANDERS. 
 
 the two parts of the branch of a tree which he has 
 split up the middle, and binds it round with his 
 saddle-girth so tightly that the blood and humours 
 spring forth and leave the flesh "sweet and dry/' 
 and as " white as that of a capon." " After all," 
 says Scott, " it may be doubted whether la chair 
 nostree, for so the French called the venison thus 
 summarily prepared, was any thing more than a mere 
 rude kind of deer ham." To be sure it was a deer 
 ham, and a rude one too ; but not the less completely 
 prepared on that account for the table — or the hunger. 
 I know many persons at this moment who eat bacon 
 ham undressed, and who could very readily under- 
 stand the exclamation of Claudius, to whom the 
 above delicious morsel was offered by the Scottish 
 knight: — "Par l'ame de moy je ne mangeay oncques- 
 mais de chair atournee de tel guise : mais doresen- 
 avant je ne me retourneroye pas hors de mon chemin 
 pour avoir la cuite !" 
 
 Even after the highlanders had utterly thrown 
 aside their bows and arrows, it appears to have been 
 some time before they took, in anything like kindly 
 fashion, to the bayonet. They were in the habit of 
 advancing, under the enemy's fire, with their firm, 
 quick, mountain-step, till within musket-length. 
 They then discharged their pieces into the mass, 
 every shot, of course, bringing down its man ; and, 
 instantly throwing them away, drew their claymores 
 with one hand, and caught their target and dirk 
 in the other. The next moment they were down on 
 their left knee, beneath the enemy's bayonets, which 
 
SWORD-AND-TARGET MEN. 
 
 189 
 
 they wrenched aside with their targets; and before 
 the smoke of their volley had dissipated (for all this 
 may be said to have taken place in the dark), they 
 were within the lines — 
 
 Having nae thocht but how to kill 
 Twa at a blow. 
 
 If repulsed by the steadiness of the front, or the 
 deadly fire of the rear-rank, the mountaineers either 
 died or fled ; but if they succeeded in passing the 
 chevaux-de-frise of bayonets, which they were fre- 
 quently enabled to do by the aid of their target, the 
 struggle was over. With their sword in one hand, 
 and their dirk in the other, their muscles swelling 
 with the hereditary pride and fierceness of a race 
 of Macs, and their highland blood rushing madly 
 through their veins with the excitation of the 
 strife, they hewed and stabbed at the same moment 
 right and left, and, in all probability, completed the 
 dismay of the enemy by their wild and singular cries. 
 
 At an earlier period, a very curious use was made 
 of those sword-and-target men, as appears by the 
 following account, extracted from Defoe's Memoirs 
 of a Cavalier, in 1642. 
 
 " I observed that those parties had always some 
 foot with them ; and yet, if the horse gallopped, or 
 pushed on ever so forward, the foot was as forward 
 as they, which was an extraordinary advantage. 
 Gustavus Adolphus, that King of Soldiers, was the 
 first that ever I observed, who found the advantage 
 
190 
 
 HIGHLANDERS. 
 
 of mixing small bodies of musquetteers among his 
 horse ; and had he had such nimble strong fellows as 
 these, he could have proved them above all the rest 
 of his men. These were those they call High- 
 landers : they would run on foot with their arms and 
 all their accoutrements, and keep very good order 
 too, and yet keep pace with the horses, let them go 
 at what rate they would. When I saw the foot thus 
 interlined among the horse, together with the way of 
 ordering their flying parties, it presently occurred to 
 my mind, that here was some of our old Scots come 
 home out of Germany, that had the ordering of mat- 
 ters ; and if so, I knew that we were not a match 
 for them. 
 
 " I confess the soldiers made a very uncouth 
 figure, especially the Highlanders ; the oddness and 
 barbarity of their arms, seemed to have in it some- 
 thing remarkable. They were generally tall swing- 
 ing fellows ; their swords were extravagantly, and, I 
 think, insignificantly broad ; and they carried great 
 wooden targets, large enough to cover the upper part 
 of their bodies. Their dress was as antique as the 
 rest ; a cap on their heads, called by them a bonnet, 
 long hanging sleeves behind, and their doublet, 
 breeches and stockings of a stuff they call plaid, 
 striped across red and yellow, with short cloaks of 
 ^ the same. There were three or four thousand of 
 these in the Scots army, armed only with swords 
 and targets ; and, in their belts, some of them had a 
 pistol, but no muskets at that time amongst them." 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Of all the palaces so fair, 
 
 Built for the royal dwelling, 
 In Scotland, far beyond compare, 
 
 Linlithgow is excelling ; 
 And in its park in jovial June, 
 How sweet the merry linnets' tune, 
 
 How blithe the blackbirds' lay ! 
 The wild buck bells from ferny brake, 
 The coot dives merry in the lake, 
 The saddest heart might pleasure take 
 
 To see all nature gay. 
 
 Ascending from Edinburgh, in a line parallel 
 with the Forth, we reach the ancient and royal 
 borough of Linlithgow. The description in the 
 lines prefixed to this chapter is now only half true, 
 whatever it might have been in the days of Marmion 
 and Sir David Lindsay. Nature is still the same ; 
 but the palace is a ruin. 
 
 The town lies in an amphitheatre of hills ; and 
 is bounded on the north by a lake, into which the 
 
192 
 
 LINLITHGOW. 
 
 eminence projects on which the palace stands. The 
 streets — or rather the single street, running east 
 and west, for the diverging avenues are merely 
 lanes — consists of a double range of tall, black, 
 and grim-looking houses ; carrying the imagination 
 back, by their ruinous and antique appearance, to 
 the time when Lithlingow was a favourite seat of 
 the Scottish kings, and when such simple but stately 
 buildings were the town residences of the nobles of 
 the court. The modern houses interspersed only 
 serve to bring home these associations more forcibly ; 
 while they impress us with a disagreeable conscious- 
 ness that the memorials of the olden time — the 
 mute yet eloquent witnesses of history — are fast 
 crumbling away before our eyes. 
 
 In the time of David I. this was a very consider- 
 able borough ; and the size of the church, still 
 extant, would seem to prove that the population 
 must have been then at least double its present 
 amount. Its prosperity increased under the princes 
 of the house of Stewart, who loved to listen to the 
 " wild buck bells " in its woods and parks ; it was 
 in its palace that Mary opened upon the world those 
 beautiful eyes, destined to be so often filled with 
 tears ; it was in its church that her chivalrous 
 grandfather saw in vain the apparition which 
 warned him back from the fatal field of Flodden. 
 The very trees, as they murmur in the wind, 
 whisper of the past ; the very air seems thick with 
 the shadows of history. Every sod around is 
 classic ground to the Scot, who, while rejoicing in 
 
LITERAL ARROWS. 
 
 193 
 
 the modern prosperity of his country, yet looks 
 proudly and devoutly back to the days of her stormy 
 and blood-bought independence. 
 
 In the exterior of the palace you look in vain for 
 any remains of the magnificence which the descrip- 
 tion in Marmion would lead us to expect : and for 
 this sufficing reason that such never existed exter- 
 nally. In the time when it was built men looked to 
 safety more than show ; and the pomp of a court 
 could hardly be displayed anywhere else than 
 within the walls of a fortress. If the reader will 
 glance at the engraving prefixed to this chapter, he 
 will discover at once the purpose of the building. 
 In the upper part of the walls he will see a few 
 narrow windows, — since thence the inhabitants 
 might indulge themselves in a view of the country 
 with comparative impunity : lower down there are 
 only slits in the walls, whence those literal arrows 
 might be discharged, which are darted from bows 
 instead of ladies' eyes. 
 
 In the inner court, however, enough remains to 
 bear out the eulogium of Sir David Lindsay; for 
 there the architects had opportunity to display 
 their taste. The stones are polished and richly 
 sculptured, and at each corner a tower, containing 
 a spiral staircase, gives an air of castellated dignity 
 to the whole. The well in the middle of the court, 
 erected by James V., and said to have been ex- 
 tremely splendid, is a pile of ruins. The last time 
 it ran wine instead of water was in honour of Prince 
 Charles Stewart in 1 745 ; and in the following 
 s 
 
194 
 
 GLAMOUR. 
 
 year, as if in revenge for this Jacobitism, it was 
 utterly destroyed by the Georgean army. 
 
 The western side is the most ancient ; dating 
 from Edward L, who constructed a fort on the spot, 
 when engaged in the task of attempting the subju- 
 gation of Scotland. It was lost to the English by 
 a stratagem not uncommon ; a number of armed 
 men being introduced within the walls in a wain of 
 hay. The stories of necromantic glamour related 
 by the old chroniclers owe their origin, in all proba- 
 bility, to some such realities as this. A garrison 
 would think it more dishonour to acknowledge that 
 they had been cheated by an enemy, than to say 
 that they had been imposed upon by a spectral 
 illusion, by means of which a body of warriors 
 entered their walls in the form of a waggon. The 
 spell read by the goblin-page in the book taken 
 from the tomb of Michael Scott, was of a similar 
 kind. 
 
 It had much of glamour might, 
 Could make aladye seem a knight ; 
 The cobwebs on a dungeon wall, 
 Seem tapestry in lordly hall; 
 A nutshell seem a gilded barge, 
 A sheeling seem a palace large, 
 And youth seem age, and age seem youth- 
 All was delusion, nought was truth. 
 
 In this part of the palace queen Mary is supposed 
 to have been born, and the room is pointed out to 
 the visiter. " The hall is an oblong room, of about 
 twenty feet by twelve. Its floor, being formed by 
 
mary's birth place. 
 
 195 
 
 the vaulted ceiling of the apartments below, has 
 never been covered by wood, like the floors of mo- 
 dern apartments, but is paved with large square flags 
 or bricks, after the fashion of the kitchens of the 
 present day. It has thus an uncomfortable aspect, 
 though a spacious fire-place at one extremity, where 
 a whole ox might be easily roasted, tends a good deal 
 to obviate that impression. The roof and windows 
 are now gone, the floor is broken, and the dews of 
 heaven descend upon its blackened and haggard 
 walls."* A bedchamber adjoins, but tradition points 
 to the hall as the place where Mary first saw the 
 light. 
 
 The bedchamber is remarkable by the orifice of 
 a trap-door at one of the corners, from which a nar- 
 row stair descends into the vaults. An improbable 
 story is told of James III. being obliged to take 
 refuge from his rebellious nobles in this hiding- 
 place, where it is said he remained for three days. 
 A lady of the court sat upon the trap door all the 
 time spinning, in order to cover the place with her 
 skirts, like Leah squatting upon the stolen images. 
 
 The stair-tower at the corner of this court is sur- 
 mounted by a kind of turret, which is remarkable 
 on account of its height, overlooking the whole of 
 the palace. This no doubt was used as a watch- 
 tower : and there is no reason for disbelieving the 
 beautiful tradition connected with it ; which tells, 
 that when the fated James, in spite of every kind 
 
 * Chambers's Picture of Scotland. 
 
196 
 
 queen Margaret's bower. 
 
 of dissuasion, set out on that wild expedition which 
 terminated at the field of Flodden, his disconsolate 
 queen retired there to gaze and to weep alone. This 
 brave and unhappy prince seems to have been the 
 victim of too ardent an imagination. He ventured 
 kingdom and life for a " ladye-love" whom he had 
 never seen, and lost both by the treachery of another 
 whom he ought to have known too well to have 
 trusted. 
 
 And yet the sooth to tell, 
 Nor England's fair, nor France's queen, 
 Were worth one pearl-drop bright and sheen, 
 From Margaret's eye that fell, — 
 His own queen Margaret, who in Lithgow's bower, 
 All lonely sat, and wept the weary hour. 
 
 The turret to this day retains the name of queen 
 Margaret's bower. If the tradition be untrue, I 
 honour the inventor. 
 
 On the eastern side of the quadrangle is the Par- 
 liament Hall, a very splendid room, which, by the 
 niches between the windows, appears to have been 
 adorned with statues. On the south side are the 
 ruins of the royal chapel ; and on the north, the 
 dining room, and other public apartments constructed 
 by James V. after his accession to the double crown. 
 The roof of this vast edifice is entirely gone. It 
 was set fire to in 1746 by Hawley's dragoons — a 
 deed worthy of the men who a fortnight before had 
 fled hither from Falkirk. 
 
CROSS WELL. I<>7 
 
 The church is almost entire,, and is reckoned a 
 very line specimen of Gothic architecture. It was 
 here that the apparition appeared to James IV. 
 
 Opposite the town house is the cross well,, a very 
 curious and elaborate structure. It is a modern 
 facsimile of one which was erected in ] 620 ; and 
 is remarkable for the richness and intricacy of the 
 carving. It further excites the envy of the citizens 
 of Edinburgh by the copiousness of its supply of 
 water. 
 
 The private houses in the town have already been 
 alluded to. They are all, no doubt, provided with 
 legends of their own — but the scene of the murder 
 of the Regent Murray demands a new chapter. 
 
 s 2 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Still she bears her weird alone ; 
 And her semblance oft will seem, 
 Mingling in a champion's dream, 
 Of her weary lot to plain, 
 And crave his aid to burst her chain. 
 
 The murder of the Earl of Murray is one of the 
 most extraordinary events in the strange, eventful 
 history of Scotland. This man, one of the bastards 
 of James V., had risen, by his talents and courage, 
 from a sinecure office in the church, to be regent of 
 the kingdom. Every scheme of his ambition was 
 fulfilled — excepting, perhaps, the last and highest ; 
 he had left the queen in the hands of her enemy 
 Elizabeth, with a charge of murder hanging over 
 her head ; he had undermined, betrayed, and aban- 
 doned the Duke of Norfolk, her latest hope; and 
 amidst the plaudits of the people, of whom he was 
 the idol, he was proceeding to the capital of the 
 kingdom, rather in the mode of a triumph than of a 
 
THE REGENT MURRAY. 
 
 199 
 
 journey, when the sudden bullet of an assassin 
 quieted his busy brain for ever. 
 
 The unnatural hatred, as it is called, which he ex- 
 hibited towards his sister, seems to me to be the most 
 natural thing in the world. At the beginning of his 
 career, while yet prior of St. Andrews, his conduct 
 and sentiments were befitting their relationship. It 
 was he who brought her back to the country of her 
 birth, and led her by the hand to the throne of her 
 ancestors ; while Mary rested her too womanly 
 heart upon this illegitimate brother with girlish 
 confidence and fondness. 
 
 He served her with fidelity and talent, and 
 received the most generous and honourable reward ; 
 and then came the sudden and insane passion of 
 Mary for Darnley, and all was overturned, as if by 
 the blast of a whirlwind. Murray still retained his 
 wealth and honours, but his sister, lost in her 
 woman's love, no longer treated him with the same 
 exclusive distinction. From this moment the cur- 
 rent of his affections was changed. It is true that 
 he had abundant reasons, both of policy and patri- 
 otism, for opposing her marriage ; but their coinci- 
 dence with his own private causes of disgust was 
 unfortunate. His dread of bringing the country 
 under continental dictation, by the union of its 
 queen with a papist, could have arisen from no 
 honourable or manly principle ; for there never was 
 a statesman who grovelled, in so mean and dastardly 
 a manner, before a foreign power, as Murray after- 
 wards did at the footstool of Elizabeth. 
 
200 
 
 TRUTH OF FICTION. 
 
 The earl entered into a cabal with the other lords 
 of the same party, and solicited the assistance of 
 England. Mary raised the country in arms, and 
 summoned him to appear before his sovereign: he 
 refused, and was outlawed. Then came the murder 
 of her low-born favourite Rizio — and the restoration 
 of Murray, one of the faction by whom it was per- 
 petrated, to favour.* The murder of Darnley was 
 the next great act in this wild drama ; and then fol- 
 lowed, in rapid succession, the marriage of the queen 
 to the assassin — her deserved fall — captivity — and 
 dethronement. 
 
 The means adopted by the insurgent lords to ob- 
 tain the queen's abdication were strangely character- 
 istic of the time, and of the men ; and it may here 
 be worth while to recall them. The narrative given 
 in the Abbot is fuller than history, and as true. It 
 displays, perhaps in a higher degree than we meet 
 with it elsewhere, that extraordinary faculty pos- 
 sessed by our great master, of filling up the bare 
 outline of facts, and thus metamorphosing, as it were, 
 
 * Robertson's description of this assassination forms one of the finest his- 
 torical pictures in the language. Remark the preparations. "The place 
 chosen for committing such a deed was the queen's bed chamber. Though 
 Mary was now in the sixth month of her pregnancy, and though Rizio might 
 have been seized elsewhere, without any difficulty, the king pitched upon 
 this place, that he might enjoy the malicious pleasure of reproaching Rizio 
 with his crimes before the queen's face. The earl of Morton, the lord high 
 chancellor of the kingdom, undertook to direct an enterprise, carried on in 
 defiance of all the laws of which he was bound to be the guardian. The 
 lord Ruthven, who had been confined to his bed for three months by a 
 dangerous distemper, and who was still so feeble that he could hardly 
 walk, or bear the weight of his armour, was entrusted with the executive 
 part ; and while he himself needed to be supported by two men, he came 
 abroad to commit a murder in the presence of his sovereign." 
 
LORD LINDSAY. 
 
 201 
 
 without destroying its identity, a dry and withered 
 skeleton into a living and breathing man. 
 
 The principal actor on this occasion, Lord Linde- 
 say of the Byres, "was rather touched than stricken 
 with years. His upright stature and strong limbs 
 showed him fully equal to all the exertions and 
 fatigues of war. His thick eyebrows, now partially 
 grizzled, lowered over large eyes full of dark fire, 
 which seemed yet darker, from the uncommon depth 
 at which they were set in his head. His features, 
 naturally strong and harsh, had their sternness exag- 
 gerated by one or two scars received in battle. * * * 
 * * * His whole equipment was that of a rude 
 warrior, negligent of his exterior even to misanthro- 
 pical sullenness ; and the short, harsh, haughty tone, 
 which he used towards his attendants, belonged to the 
 same unpolished character." This stern noble was the 
 deadly enemy of Mary and Bothwell ; and his very 
 rudeness of person, and brutality of bearing, rendered 
 him a proper messenger where the purpose was 
 intimidation, and the intended victim a woman, a 
 beauty, and a queen. 
 
 He crossed the Firth at Queensberry, a village 
 nine miles from Edinburgh, which is supposed to 
 derive its name from the queen of Malcom Can- 
 more ; and without any other adventure than the 
 harmless insult of a culverin fired at the vessel by 
 his enemy the lord of the castle of Rossyth,* ar- 
 rived at Lochleven. 
 
 * This ancient fortress, now rained and abandoned, forms one of the 
 finest features in the scene. It is a huge square tower, encompassed by 
 
202 
 
 LOCHLEVEN CASTLE. 
 
 This beautiful lake presents much variety of 
 scenery ; being studded with several islands, and 
 bounded at one extremity by a splendid range of 
 hills, called the eastern and western Lomonds, the 
 former of which is so lofty as to be seen from Edin- 
 burgh. On the west shore of the loch stands the 
 small town of Kinross, a portion of which presents 
 pretty nearly the same aspect now as it did at the 
 period referred to. On the eastern extremity are 
 the remains of the monasteries of Portmoak, and 
 Scotland's Well ; and further to the north the little 
 village of Kinneswood, where lived and died, in 
 innocent and perhaps happy seclusion, a youthful 
 poet. An obelisk rises in the church yard of Scot- 
 land's Well to the memory of Michael Bruce. 
 
 The largest island in the lake, situated at the east- 
 ern extremity, contained the monastery in which An- 
 drew de Winton wrote his chronicle (and of which 
 only a few ruins are seen to-day) — but the fierce eyes 
 of Lindsay were fixed upon another, more in the 
 middle ; where a square tower, five stories in height, 
 with a smaller one at the angle of the court yard, 
 seemed to rivet his attention. It was in this secluded 
 spot — once possessed by Alexander III., and be- 
 sieged by Edward I. — that the queen was impri- 
 
 the sea at high water; and was formerly the seat of a branch of the 
 family of Stewart, descended from Sir James, the uncle of Robert II. 
 From this branch Oliver Cromwell claimed his descent. His grandmother 
 was a daughter of the laird of Rossyth ; and it is said that the Protector 
 visited the castle when encamped in the neighbourhood. The arms and 
 initials of Queen Mary are seen over the gate of the court; from which 
 it is conjectured that this unhappy princess once resided there. 
 
a queen's bedroom. 
 
 203 
 
 soned ; and here, surrounded by waters, mountains, 
 and moors, 
 
 The Rose of Scotland wept in vain. 
 
 Botli the towers are now unroofed ; the draw- 
 bridge is destroyed ; and it is with difficulty the 
 traveller can climb by a window of the ruin into the 
 second story. In the fourth, it is said, were the 
 apartments of Mary ; and a recess in the wall of 
 one of them is shown as the space that served for 
 her bedroom. This is not unlikely, as the whole area 
 of the floor is not more than twenty feet square. 
 
 When Lindsay and his associates reached the 
 shores of the lake, his pennon was displayed as a 
 signal for the boat ; and the impatient baron himself 
 "blew a clamorous blast on his bugle." It would 
 be needless to give even an outline of the scene 
 which followed their admission to the castle; for 
 those who have read the narrative of Scott — and 
 who has not? — must remember every sentence. 
 The description of Mary's reluctance to sign the 
 deed of abdication, and the ferocious impatience of 
 Lindsay, is almost terrible. 
 
 " c Beware, madam/ cried he, as she hesitated 
 again, after having already stooped towards the 
 table ; and snatching hold of the queen's arm with 
 his own gauntleted hand, he pressed it in the rude- 
 ness of his passion, more closely perhaps than he 
 was himself aware of — e Beware how you contend 
 with those who are the stronger, and who have the 
 mastery of your fate !' 
 
204 
 
 SIGN MANUAL. 
 
 "He held his grasp on her arm, bending his eyes 
 on her with a stern and intimidating look, till both 
 Ruthven and Melville cried shame ; and Douglas, 
 who had hitherto remained in a state of apparent 
 apathy, had made a stride from the door as if to 
 interfere. The rude baron then quitted his hold, 
 disguising the confusion which he really felt at 
 having indulged his passion to such extent, under a 
 sullen and contemptuous smile." 
 
 At the conclusion of this trying interview, Mary 
 at length signed the deeds ; taking the spectators 
 to witness that she did so in obedience to the sign 
 manual of my lord of Lindsay imprinted on her 
 arm. 
 
 " Lindsay stood motionless, even when they were 
 preparing to withdraw. At length, as if moved by 
 a sudden impulse, he walked round the table which 
 had hitherto been betwixt them and the queen, 
 kneeled on one knee, took her hand, kissed it, let it 
 fall, and arose — ' Lady/ he said, ' thou art a noble 
 creature, even although thou hast abused God's 
 choicest gifts. I pay that devotion to thy manliness 
 of spirit which I would not have paid to the power 
 thou hast so long undeservedly wielded — I kneel to 
 Mary Stewart, not to the queen.' " 
 
 In these latter events Murray had no direct 
 agency ; he was not even in the kingdom when 
 the queen was sent to Lochleven castle ; he was re- 
 minded of his sister only by the honours which she 
 had showered upon him, and the lenity of her con- 
 duct (late as it was, and whether proceeding from 
 
ORIGIN OF PENAL LAW. 
 
 205 
 
 policy or affection) at a time when he had stood in 
 the situation of an outlawed traitor. 
 
 As we proceed in the history, notwithstanding, we 
 tind his political opposition converted into personal 
 and deadly hatred ; and our feelings are shocked, 
 while our curiosity is stimulated, by the spectacle 
 of this inhuman passion increasing in malignity, in 
 exact proportion to the ruin and helplessness of its 
 object. 
 
 But the supposed complicity of Mary in the mur- 
 der of her husband — was not this stain upon the 
 honour of their blood sufficient to account for the 
 rage of her brother? The question is worth an 
 answer ; and in order to give its full weight to the 
 plea, we must admit, without reserve, the guilty 
 knowledge of the queen. It will be necessary then 
 to consider what degree of moral odium was involved 
 by the fact. 
 
 The lex talionis is the most ancient of all laws — 
 an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Before men 
 had arrived at the epoch of civilization which gave 
 it birth, the quantum of retaliation was proportioned 
 no doubt to the power, or passion of the inflicter. 
 The very enactment, however, of the public law in- 
 volved a solemn recognition of the original principle 
 of vengeance ; and so far from moderating the feel- 
 ings of the injured, it would produce a feverish 
 craving after what then assumed, the amiable name 
 of justice. 
 
 This law, however — introduced at first, it is to be 
 presumed by a chief, or an association of chiefs, 
 
 T 
 
206 RESPECTABILITY OF MURDER. 
 
 powerful enough to guarantee its execution — soon 
 became almost a dead letter. The king, often unable 
 to protect himself from his rival nobility, could 
 afford no permanent protection to others. The weak 
 only were caught in the meshes of legislation, while 
 the strong burst through them ; and thus the natural 
 desire of vengeance was aggravated almost to mad- 
 ness by the sense of injustice. 
 
 To suffer an injury to pass with impunity was a 
 confession of weakness and defeat — an avowal, in the 
 language of chivalry, of being recreu, overcome, 
 recreant ; and honour and revenge became insepa- 
 rably united. When the hand of the executioner 
 was too feeble or unsteady to punish, the injured 
 party summoned his vassals to the field, and marched 
 in war array against his enemy. The legislature, at 
 length, bending before the spirit of the time, entered 
 into a compromise ; and single combats, being less 
 destructive to society than battles, received the sanc- 
 tion of the laws. When the parties, therefore, were of 
 equal rank and equal power, they drew their swords : 
 when the balance was unequal, they grasped the 
 dagger. 
 
 In any of these cases — of battle, single combat, 
 assassination, — the principle, and moral value of the 
 action, were the same. It was no more dishonourable 
 to stab a powerful enemy in the back, than to cap- 
 ture his fortress by stratagem of war, or to slay him 
 in the lists by superior address. Hence, the fre- 
 quency of Murder (base and dastardly as the crime 
 is held in societies where all men are equally amen- 
 
BRAVE ASSASSINS. 
 
 207 
 
 able to the laws) was at one time in exact proportion 
 to the courage and high spirit of the people among 
 whom it was perpetrated. The French and the 
 Scots, for instance, two of the bravest nations, were 
 for a long period, the most practised assassins in 
 Europe.* 
 
 That the sentiments of the Scots on this point had 
 sustained hardly any change at the epoch of Mary is 
 susceptible of proof. Our elegant Buchanan deals 
 with the murder of Rizio as with an occurrence 
 neither extraordinary nor criminal. Ruthven and 
 Morton, the two principal conspirators, never thought 
 of expressing any compunction even on their death- 
 beds ; and the ministers who attended the last mo- 
 ments of the latter, no more thought of holding up 
 " David's slaughter," to him as an action calling for 
 repentance. The exultation of John Knox at the 
 murder of Cardinal Beatoun and the Duke de Guise, 
 and the triumph with which Blackwood and the 
 
 * It was near the close of the seventeenth century before this crime 
 became of comparatively rare occurrence in France ; and in Scotland it 
 did not disappear, till the union of that kingdom with England strength- 
 ened the hands of the monarch, and hastened the civilization of the peoplt . 
 When the Scottish gentlemen first followed their king to London, they 
 gave so much offence to the English by their pride and fierceness, that 
 innumerable duels were the consequence. In these conflicts it became the 
 fashion for the seconds to engage as well as the principals; and at length, 
 as the national animosity was rendered more furious by such bloody diet, 
 all forms and laws of arms were set aside, and both Scots and English 
 slaughtered their enemies, with or without odds, whenever opportunity 
 offered. At length the famous Statute of Stabbing was enacted, identify- 
 ing the crime of manslaughter with that of murder; and a little wholesome 
 hanging, now and then, taught the Scots moderation, and the English 
 hospitality. 
 
208 
 
 PIOUS PUN. 
 
 Bishop of Ross relate that of the Earl of Murray, 
 may also be alluded to; but even in England, where 
 the laws were administered by the firm hand of 
 Elizabeth, the same remains of barbarism were not 
 unknown. The Bishop of Norwich, communicating 
 by letter the news of the death of Rizio to Bul- 
 linger, the divine of Zurich, amuses his pious corres- 
 pondent with some exulting puns on the fate of a friar 
 called Black, who was reported to have perished 
 with him : " Sic niger hie nebulo, nigra quoque 
 morte peremptus, invitus nigrum subito descendit in 
 orcum." 
 
 The murder of Darnley, therefore, considered as a 
 simple assassination, was no stain upon the honour 
 of the family; while, in its concomitant circum- 
 stances, it should rather have been gratifying than 
 otherwise to the brother of the queen. 
 
 The insults which provoked it (always supposing 
 the complicity of Mary), were such as no peasant girl 
 in the kingdom would have borne without revenge. 
 The creature of her bounty, and the idol of her 
 infatuated love, he had returned her benefits with 
 ingratitude, and her passion with contempt. He 
 had slighted her person — the most lovely in Europe ; 
 turned from her endearments with indifference or 
 disgust, and braved her power with the insolence of 
 phrenzy. By his despicable tastes, and low debau- 
 chery, he had brought contempt upon the royal 
 house ; and thus, in every part of his conduct, he 
 must have roused the indignation of the family, as 
 well as kindled the rage of a despised mistress, an 
 injured wife, and an insulted queen. 
 
UNNATURAL HATRED. 
 
 209 
 
 He was besides the personal enemy of Murray. 
 To oppose his exaltation, the latter had laid aside 
 the affection of a brother, and the loyalty of a sub- 
 ject; and Darnley on his part — weak in the strength, 
 but strong; in the weakness of human nature — 
 returned hate for hate with equal intensity. 
 
 He was, moreover, a bigoted papist ; and Murray 
 was the lay leader of the reformed party. It needs 
 no more to be satisfied that it is not in the crimes of 
 the queen we are to look for the cause of her brother's 
 hatred. 
 
 When Mary was shut up in Lochleven castle ; — 
 when Murray had returned from France, to coquet 
 for a while with the lords of the ascendant, and then 
 accept the regency ; when he had actually resolved 
 to grasp the reins of state torn from her hands — he 
 turned out of the road to visit his sister, now a 
 helpless captive, and a dethroned queen. His 
 errand, however, was not to console, or weep with 
 her — to ask her forgiveness, like an executioner 
 before striking the blow — to explain what a struggle 
 it cost him to sacrifice the affection of a brother to 
 the duty of a citizen. He went to reproach and 
 curse her ; to call up her offences — now past and 
 irretrievable — like accusing witnesses ; to riot in her 
 tears and lamentations, and gloat upon her despair. 
 This was not, as Robertson describes it, an instance 
 of " the want of delicacy and refinement in that age" 
 — nor in any age. It was not natural ; and its cause 
 must be sought for much deeper than in the rudeness 
 of the time. 
 
 t 3 
 
210 
 
 THE BABY KING. 
 
 The regent, it is to be supposed, was not less busy 
 with his speculations on the new and extraordinary 
 situation of the country than other men. Nay, 
 from his high rank in the victorious party, we may 
 conclude his thoughts to have been still more absorb- 
 ingly engaged; whilst his near relationship to the 
 dethroned queen and her infant son, must have given 
 them a colour altogether peculiar. The queen was 
 now rejected, and cast aside, in the pride of her 
 youth. A mighty revolution in religion, policy, and 
 manners, had just shaken the kingdom to its centre; 
 every thing was yet unsteady ; the smothered fires 
 of faction required only a breath to blow them 
 into name ; and even the party calling itself the 
 state (which was nothing more than a stronger faction 
 itself) was torn asunder with dissensions. Where, at 
 this crisis, was the heir of James V., fitted at once 
 by gigantic talents, and indomitable courage, for the 
 task of restoring order in the howling chaos, and 
 establishing an old monarchy upon new liberties and 
 new institutions ? A baby of a year old sat on the 
 unstable throne of the Scottish kings! 
 
 Who can tell — or rather, who can not tell — what 
 was the dream of James Stewart, as those things 
 passed in array before him ? He was the brother of 
 Mary — the male descendant of James V. His bosom 
 swelled with the pride of a line of kings ; his 
 courage was an heir-loom of the house of Stewart ; 
 and only his judgment, cool, strong, and penetrating, 
 was his own. What freak of nature — or accident — 
 or grotesque fatality had set down a female on his 
 
LEGITIMACY. 
 
 211 
 
 father's throne ? She was legitimate — and he a 
 bastard. The daughter of the royal Stewart, she 
 was also the daughter of a Frenchwoman— but she 
 was legitimate. The son of a Stewart and a Douglas, 
 the two noblest names in Scotland, he was base born ! 
 
 " There's the respect " — that turned his natural 
 feelings into poison. So long as Mary had reigned, 
 secure in the affections of her people, she was his 
 sister; and his ambition found honourable employ- 
 ment in her service. Degraded from the crown, a 
 beggar, and a captive, he could only remember now 
 that he was her brother — the son of James V. 
 When seated on the throne, young in years, high 
 in wealth, and glorious in woman's beauty, she bad 
 formed a horizon beyond which his eyes could not 
 penetrate. Now, the space was vacant, or only tilled 
 with the phantasms of his ambition. The more he 
 meditated, the more he dreamed, — the more he 
 cursed the misfortune of his birth ; and the more, 
 in consequence, he hated his legitimate sister. 
 Murder and adultery he might have forgiven; but 
 never that legitimacy, from which, ever and anon, 
 
 " There came a token like a scorpion's sting, 
 
 reminding him of all he might have been — of all 
 that it was horror to think of, yet on which his 
 thoughts fixed, and grappled, and gloated, as if by 
 the force of enchantment. 
 
 When Murray had relieved his poisoned heart at 
 Lochleven, he assumed the regency, and governed 
 
212 
 
 AN ALTERED MAN. 
 
 the kingdom in the name of his infant nephew. A 
 change of feelings, such as I have assumed to take 
 place, could hardly exist without corresponding indi- 
 cations in the outward manner ; and the facts recorded 
 by history serve, so far as they go, to confirm our 
 speculations on human nature. The brow of the 
 regent, formerly bold and open, was now overcast. 
 Plunged in deep reveries, he shunned familiar inter- 
 course. Lonely, distant, and haughty, he resembled 
 not so much a man surrounded by strange and trying 
 circumstances, as one in whose eye the phantoms of 
 the mind are the most prominent objects. Every 
 action was weighed in reference to its distant conse- 
 quences ; and from a plain, blunt soldier, the earl 
 suddenly became, or attempted to become, a cold and 
 artful politician. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Sternly he spoke — Tis sweet to hear 
 
 In good green wood the bugle blown ; 
 But sweeter to Revenge's ear, 
 
 To hear a tyrant's dying groan. 
 
 In the midst of all this, an event occurred which 
 startled the regent like a thunderbolt. Mary, 
 although a captive in the hands of her enemies, and 
 in the midst of a lonely lake, was yet formidable in 
 her arms of grace and beauty, in her queenly 
 majesty, and her woman's tears. Young Douglas of 
 Lochleven, at once pitying her misfortunes, and 
 smitten with her charms, contrived their escape. On 
 a dark night, and at the witching hour, they left 
 the island. 
 
 te The sentinel, whose slumbering had withstood 
 the whispering, was alarmed by the dash of the oars. 
 His challenge was instantly heard. c A boat — a 
 boat ! bring to, or I shoot ! ' And as they continued 
 
214 
 
 ESCAPE OF MARY. 
 
 to ply their oars, he called aloud, ' Treason ! trea- 
 son ! ' rang the alarm bell of the castle, and dis- 
 charged his harquebuss at the boat. The ladies 
 crowded on each other like startled wild fowl, at 
 the flash and report of the piece, while the men 
 urged the rowers to the utmost speed. They heard 
 more than one ball whiz along the surface of the 
 lake, at no great distance from their little bark ; and 
 from the lights, which glanced like meteors, from 
 window to window, it was evident that the whole 
 castle were alarmed, and their flight discovered." 
 
 Mary, however, effected her escape, and soon found 
 herself once more at the head of an army. But even 
 now the regent did not lose his presence of mind ; 
 but by his promptitude and vigour, no less than by 
 the wisdom of his plans, proved himself to belong 
 to that class of men who should be termed the 
 parents rather than the sons of destiny. He 
 attacked, and routed the enemy at Langside, with a 
 far inferior force ; and compelled the queen to the 
 fatal step of flying for refuge into the tigress's den, 
 whence she was never to escape alive. The victory 
 should be termed " glorious " (if the word were not 
 so vilely prostituted as to be worth nothing), for it 
 was bought with the loss of only three hundred 
 lives ; and even six of the prisoners, whom he had 
 selected for execution, were spared, when on the 
 scaffold, at the intercession of John Knox. 
 
 Among the six prisoners there was one man 
 whose life it proved the keenest, yet probably un- 
 conscious, cruelty to spare. This was Bothwellhaugh, 
 
BATTLE OF LANGSIDE. 
 
 215 
 
 a gentleman of the clan of Hamilton, and a blood 
 relation of its chief, the Earl of Arran (Duke of 
 Chatelherault in France), the first peer of the realm. 
 He had married the heiress of Woodhouselee, and 
 resided with her in her own ancestral home in the 
 lovely vale of Esk, and where she had just given 
 birth to a child. At this moment the tocsin sounded 
 throughout Scotland ; the queen had escaped from 
 Lochleven ; and the loyal Hamilton, tearing himself 
 away from his new-born hope and his young wife, 
 ran to join the muster of his clan. 
 
 The result of the struggle is known. Mary stood 
 on a hill to look on at the battle which was to decide 
 her fate ; and the Hamiltons in the van, led on by 
 Lord Claud Hamilton, knowing that they fought 
 under the eye of " the most unhappy of queens, the 
 most lovely of women," left their ground in a burst 
 of enthusiasm, and rushed on to the encounter. 
 The space between them and the enemy was consi- 
 derable, and their force was almost spent before 
 they came to close quarters. When at length the 
 spears of the two opposing lines were locked toge- 
 ther like the arms of lovers, and the tug of battle 
 commenced, a continuous fire of musketry opened 
 upon one of their flanks, while on their other, they 
 were attacked by the elite of the regent's troops. 
 The main body of Mary's adherents behind, dis- 
 heartened by a spectacle for which they were un- 
 prepared, or controlled by the destiny of the fated 
 queen, remained stupified ; and the Hamiltons, 
 
216 
 
 PHANT03I OF THE ESK. 
 
 unsupported,, or rather sacrificed,, gave way, and the 
 battle became a flight.* 
 
 When Bothwellhaugh, a dishonoured soldier and 
 a condemned criminal, ascended the scaffold soon 
 after, it may be conceived with what feelings he 
 turned his eyes towards the south, and saw in imagi- 
 nation his " pallid rose " drooping feebly yet fondly 
 over his little bud. When delivered from death — 
 he scarcely understood why or how — it may be con- 
 ceived how eagerly he spurred his steed towards the 
 lonely valley of the Esk. 
 
 To describe the scene which met his view, and 
 the tale which knelled in his ear, without a creeping 
 of the flesh, a curdling of the blood, and a sickening 
 of the heart, is impossible. His estate of Wood- 
 houselee had been given away to a favourite of the 
 regent ; and this man, sir J ames Ballenden, eager 
 to enter upon his new possession, had seized the 
 house at night, and turned its mistress and her in- 
 fant out into the open fields. The young mother 
 had but lately risen from the bed of her confine- 
 ment ; she was undressed ; the night was bitterly 
 cold. The result is told to this day in the super- 
 stitions of the peasants of the Esk ; who see a lady 
 thinly clad in white, with an infant in her arms, 
 flitting wildly around the spot where the mansion 
 stood. A frenzied scream sometimes thickens their 
 blood with horror, as the phantom sinks among the 
 ruins. 
 
 * Melville says, that the vanguard was composed chiefly of commoners 
 of the neighbouring barony of Renfrew. 
 
PURPOSE OF REVENGE. 
 
 217 
 
 Bothwellhaugh turned back from Woodliouselee. 
 
 Sir James Ballenden, who held a high and 
 honourable office in the law, would have been a fair 
 mark for vengeance under any ordinary circum- 
 stances. But the wrongs of the Hamilton were 
 not such as could be weighed in the common balance 
 of blood. Something must be done — he knew not 
 what. Something that would shake the very realm 
 to its centre. Something that would be heard by 
 every ear in Scotland, as distinctly as the scream of 
 the lady of Woodhouselee had thrilled along the 
 Esk. Sir James Ballenden was but an agent, a 
 servant — a pitiful dastardly hound, who only wor- 
 ried at the command, or under the protection of his 
 master. That master was the true offender. The 
 blood of the first man in the country would be a 
 fitting libation. Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh deter- 
 mined to slay the regent of Scotland. 
 
 He dogged his steps for some time like fate. He 
 followed him to the borders, and when the regent 
 had dismissed his army, at a motion of Elizabeth's 
 royal finger, returned upon his traces to Edinburgh. 
 He was with him in York and London, when Mur- 
 ray went crouching to the footstool of the English 
 queen, to prefer a charge of murder against his 
 sister ; in Perth, in Glasgow, in Stirling, he hovered 
 around him, like a bird of prey circling above its 
 quarry, and only waiting an opportunity to strike. 
 
 The regent, in the mean time, held on his way, 
 successful alike in policy and war. When about to 
 pass through Linlithgow, on his way from Stirling 
 u 
 
218 
 
 FANCIED INVULNERABILITY. 
 
 to Edinburgh, a warning reached his ear. It came 
 from John Knox, and the first-named place was 
 mentioned as the spot of danger. There was nothing 
 preternatural in the foresight of the Scottish apostle ; 
 for the frightful wrongs of Bothwellhaugh were 
 already well known, and Linlithgow, besides being 
 favourable to the cause of the queen, was a seat of 
 the Archbishop of Saint Andrews, who had there a 
 house. * This house was more particularly pointed 
 out to the regent, as the place to be avoided. 
 
 Constitutionally brave, and steeled yet more against 
 the sense of danger by a long course of daring and 
 success, James Stewart smiled scornfully at the 
 warning. Was his wonderful destiny in the hands 
 of the petty laird of Bothwellhaugh ? Was the blood 
 of a line of Scottish kings to sink in the ground at 
 the command of a vassal of Hamilton ? In vain had 
 the Earl of Huntly beset his path, as if he had been 
 stalking a deer ; in vain had Bothwell — in vain had 
 Darnley, raised the dagger against his breast ; in 
 vain, but a few months ago, had a hedge of 
 Northumberland and Westmoreland spears risen up 
 to prevent his return to Scotland alive. All were 
 in vain. Secure alike from war and treachery, he 
 bore a charmed life ; and when his gallant steed 
 swerved at the sight and cheers of the tumultuous 
 crowd, as they commenced their march through Lin- 
 lithgow, the regent probably addressed him inwardly 
 
 * The Archbishop was the natural brother of the Duke of Chatelherault 
 (the chief of the Hamilton's), and uncle to Bothwellhaugh. 
 
WARNING. 
 
 219 
 
 with the Roman's encouragement, " Quid timeis ? 
 Caesarem vehis, et fortunam Ceesaris !" 
 
 At this moment, however, the warning was re- 
 peated still more emphatically — perhaps for no 
 better reason than that they were now approaching 
 the house of the Archbishop of Saint Andrews : the 
 alarm spread among the friends who encircled him, 
 and murmurs arose, that it was madness to expose a 
 life so precious to them, and to the kingdom, to any 
 unnecessary risk. The regent himself began to 
 think that his danger was something more than 
 imaginary ; and, at length, turning his horse, he 
 gave orders to the cortege to face about, resolving to 
 quit Linlithgow by the same gate by which he had 
 entered, and make a circuit round the town. 
 
 The house which had excited their fears, and 
 which they thus left behind, formed part of the 
 line of buildings; and a sort of gallery, or apart- 
 ment, projecting from the walls, overlooked the 
 street. In this gallery stood the Revenger, a brass 
 carabine of peculiar construction, the barrel being 
 rifled, raised to his eye, and a lighted match 
 grasped between his fingers. The floor was carpeted 
 with a feather-bed, that no sound might be heard 
 from his footsteps, and the Avail behind was hung 
 with black cloth, that his shadow might not be 
 observed by the passers-by. A fleet horse stood 
 saddled and bridled at the back door, the front 
 entrance was strongly barricaded, and the closes, or 
 covered courts, in the neighbourhood, leading to the 
 
220 
 
 THE ALLOTTED PATH. 
 
 rear of the houses, were stuffed with furze. And so 
 stood Bothwellhaugh, his eye fixed grimly on the 
 visy of his piece ; his lips as hard as stone, yet half 
 open with expectation ; and impatience, mingled 
 with iron resolve, scowling on his brow. 
 
 When the regent reached the gate of the town, he 
 found the crowd of citizens, thus thrust back, strug- 
 gling with a tide of population, rushing in with 
 equal force, from the neighbouring country, to see 
 the show. The way was for the moment impas- 
 sable ; and Murray, chafing with impatience scorned 
 to wait till it was cleared. Changing his determina- 
 tion as suddenly, and as unconsciously as before, he 
 turned his horse again, and passed on his allotted path. 
 
 It may be that, on finding himself again pursuing 
 the same track, against which he had been warned, 
 and which he had but a few minutes before deter- 
 mined to shun, some unusual sensation passed across 
 his heart. It may be that his thoughts were car- 
 ried at that moment, by association, to the other 
 epochs of his wonderful story. Perhaps the heart- 
 broken moan of his queen and sister rose upon his 
 ear ; perhaps the frenzied scream of the lady of 
 Woodhouselee pierced through his brain. These are 
 the speculations of poetry. We only know that the 
 regent, determining to defy and baffle the danger 
 which it seemed he could not shun, called to his fol- 
 lowers to dash hastily past the archbishop's house, 
 and thus frustrate the scheme, if any such existed, 
 of his lurking enemy. 
 
THE REVENGER. 
 
 221 
 
 Dark Morton, girt with many a spear, 
 Murder's foul minion, led the van; 
 
 And clash'd their broadswords in the rear, 
 The wild Macfarlan's plaided clan. 
 
 Glencairn, and stout Parkhead, were nigh, 
 
 Obsequious at their regent's rein, 
 And haggard Lindsay's iron eye, 
 
 That saw fair Mary weep in vain. 
 
 But the resent could not dash over the bodies of 
 his countrymen, and would not if he had been able. 
 The crowd before was as dense as the crowd behind ; 
 every dwelling, every close, continued to pour its 
 quota into the flood. They were near the house of 
 the archbishop, and perhaps the very circumstance 
 retarded their progress, from the eagerness of the 
 vassals to crowd round their master at the dangerous 
 spot, and if need was, to die with him, or for him. 
 The order of the line was broken ; the chief was 
 encircled by devoted friends ; and only now and 
 then the waive of his proud plumes could be dis- 
 cerned from the gallery among the crowd of heads. 
 They were opposite the house. The window was 
 open, but the gallery empty ; for there was no foot- 
 step on the floor, no shadow on the Avail. They did 
 not see the glare of the tiger-eye of Bothwellhaugh — 
 the damp of deadly hate standing on his brow — the 
 hand which clutched the carabine trembling with 
 impatience. Another moment and the regent is safe. 
 It came not. A shot was heard above the cheers of 
 u3 
 
222 
 
 FLIGHT OF THE ASSASSIN. 
 
 the crowd ; and he fell, mortally wounded, from his 
 horse.* 
 
 To mark the fate of his victim ; to fly to the rear 
 of the building ; to bound upon his steed, were but 
 the occupations of an instant. The Revenger gained 
 the open country unmolested: for to force an entrance 
 into the house was a work of time; and he fled, at 
 full speed towards Hamilton, the capital of his clan. 
 But not alone. Leaving their comrades to force an 
 entrance as they might, some ready-minded vassals 
 of the regent had darted away, almost at the moment 
 of the deed, to intercept him. Owing to more accu- 
 rate knowledge of the neighbourhood of the town, he 
 had the start ; but now, serving as a guide himself, 
 the whole party, pursuers and pursued, scoured over 
 the heath together. 
 
 Bothwellhaugh was hardly a spear's-throw in ad- 
 vance ; but his horse, which had been the gift of 
 lord John Hamilton, was all muscle and mettle. 
 Onward the noble brute bounded — straight as an 
 arrow — over field, and moss, and dyke, and burn. 
 When his strength began to fail, whip and spur were 
 applied, till his sides welled blood and SAveat at the 
 same time. But even the rowels at length failed in 
 their effect, and the sense of pain became dead in 
 the wide wound they had formed. The pursuers 
 
 * The fire-lock of the carabine in the engraving involves an anachro- 
 nism, for which Mr. Cattermole is not to blame. The piece is preserved 
 at Hamilton Palace; but somebody, from a singular species of taste, has 
 thought proper to replace the original match-lock, with the modern 
 invention. 
 
ESCAPE. 
 
 223 
 
 were close upon his heels. At every leap he had 
 taken, however mad and desperate, they had come 
 thundering after ; and he now distinctly heard the 
 groan-like panting of their steeds, and the sobs with 
 which the riders caught breath as they flew. 
 
 A stream was in front, broad, deep, and sluggish, 
 winding through a morass. There was no purchase 
 in the soft ground for the animal's heels, even if in 
 full vigour for the leap ; but, spent as he was, and 
 callous even to the spur, what hope remained? 
 Bothwellhaugh, however, still held on his course. 
 As he neared the water, he tried the rowels again, 
 to the very hilt — without effect. A hoarse cheer 
 arose from the pursuers behind. He then suddenly 
 drew his dagger, as he had gained the brink — struck 
 it deep into his horse's haunch ; and the affrighted 
 animal sprang madly over the gulph. 
 
 He was now safe, and arrived speedily at Hamil- 
 ton ; where he was received in triumph by his friends 
 and clan. After having remained there for some 
 time, Bothwellhaugh passed over into France, and 
 offered his services to the Guises, the kinsmen of the 
 queen of Scots. By them he was treated with much 
 distinction ; and even a circumstance which he felt as 
 a bitter insult, was probably intended as the very 
 reverse. When it was the question among them to 
 murder the famous Coligny, the leader of the pro- 
 testant party, overtures were made to the Scottish 
 assassin, with the view of engaging him to strike 
 the blow. Bothwellhaugh spurned at the proposal 
 with scorn and indignation. " The admiral," he said, 
 
224 
 
 HONOUR OF A MURDERER. 
 
 " was no personal enemy of his. A man of honour 
 was entitled to avenge his own just quarrels ; but 
 would cease to be so if he committed murder for 
 another !" 
 
 I may add that the Archbishop of St. Andrews, 
 two months afterwards, fell into the hands of his 
 enemies at the capture of Dumbarton castle, and was 
 hanged without ceremony ; and that the heir of the 
 regent Murray was murdered in the prime of his 
 youth by the Earl of Huntly. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 O gay, yet fearful to behold, 
 
 Flashing with steel, and rough with gold, 
 
 And bristled o'er with bills and spears, 
 With plumes and pennons waving fair, 
 Was that bright battle-front ! for there 
 
 Rode England's king and peers. 
 
 Proceeding from Linlithgow in the same direc- 
 tion, that is to say, parallel with the river, we enter 
 Stirlingshire. This is the most celebrated district 
 in Scotland ; and from the days of Fingal, down to 
 the last rebellion, it has served for a battle-field 
 from generation to generation. 
 
 It is remarked by Mr. Nimmo, in his general his- 
 tory of this county, that the prophetic verses of 
 Lucan, 
 
 Tunc omne Latinum 
 Fabula noinen erit, 
 
 have been amply fulfilled by the utter oblivion into 
 
226 
 
 LAND OF DARKNESS. 
 
 which the Roman name has fallen among the peo- 
 ple. The military causeway, and other great works, 
 are attributed either to the Peaghs ( Picts) or to the 
 magical charms of Michael Scott; and these two 
 origins seem to afford tradition its only alternative. 
 This author agrees with Sibbald in his general con- 
 jectures with regard to the aspect of the district in 
 the time of the Romans ; but seems to have some 
 doubt as to the learned antiquary's speculation on 
 the subject of the Carse, which he affirms to have 
 been covered with the sea. 
 
 This fertile and beautiful district is represented 
 by the Roman historians as the most dismal corner 
 of the whole earth, a land of fog and darkness, of 
 impenetrable woods, and unwholesome fens. That 
 this description came somewhat near the truth (be- 
 fore the marshes were drained, and the forests 
 thinned, or cut down) is rendered probable by the 
 fact, that there is not a single place mentioned in 
 Ptolemy's description of Britain which can be traced 
 in the shire of Stirling. Neither does this district 
 seem to have belonged to any of the four kingdoms 
 which surrounded it — the Northumbrian, Cumbrian, 
 Scottish, and Pictish. It was a desert where the 
 hostile armies met upon debatable ground, and 
 where the roving tribes of inhabitants were probably 
 against them all. 
 
 Sibbald gives an account, at once odd and simple, 
 of the etymology of the name. He says that Strive- 
 lin, or Striveling, is nothing else than striving ; and 
 that the word comes from the struggles of the three 
 
APPROACH TO STIRLING. 
 
 227 
 
 streams of Forth, Teath, and Allan, which meet a 
 little way above the bridge. "Or," saith he, "it 
 might be called Striveling upon another account, 
 because it being the pass betwixt north and south, 
 the two principal divisions of the kingdom, when 
 any trouble happens, there uses to be a striving 
 about this town, which of the two contending parties 
 shall get possession of it." 
 
 The approach to the town is thus described by 
 Scott : 
 
 (t With a mind more at ease, Waverley could not 
 have failed to admire the mixture of romance and 
 beautv which renders interesting the scene through 
 which he was now passing — the field which had 
 been the scene of the tournaments of old — the rock 
 from which the ladies beheld the contest, while 
 each made vows for the success of some favourite 
 knight — the towers of the gothic church, where 
 these vows might be paid — and, surmounting all, 
 the fortress itself, at once a castle and palace, where 
 valour received the prize from royalty, and knights 
 and dames closed the evening amid the revelry of 
 the dance, the song, and the feast. All these 
 were fitted to arouse and interest a romantic 
 imagination." 
 
 In the view annexed we see the party of Balma- 
 whapple passing the fortress, which has just saluted 
 them with a bullet ; in return for which compliment 
 the valiant laird is in the act of discharging his 
 pistol at the inhospitable rock. 
 
 In approaching the town from the west, in addi- 
 
228 
 
 THE FOUR HILLS. 
 
 tion to the castle-hill, which has been the scene of 
 encounters so numerous, that a bare list would 
 occupy more room than I can spare, the traveller 
 sees before him three other hills, all famous 
 Golgothas, and all celebrated in song and history. 
 One of these is the Abbey Craig, where the Scots 
 were posted on the day the English crossed the 
 Forth to receive so memorable a defeat from Wal- 
 lace ; the second is the Gillies Hill, the western 
 termination of the field Bannockburn ; and the third 
 Sauchie Hill, where the battle was fought between 
 James III. and his rebellious subjects, which ended 
 in the defeat and death of that monarch. 
 
 On the plain opposite the castle the conflict took 
 place in 1297 which established the military reputa- 
 tion of Wallace, and led the way to the ultimate 
 deliverance of the kingdom. The skill of the 
 Scottish general would seem to be consummate, 
 from the account of the battle ; but it may be a 
 question how far he was indebted to want of skill 
 on the part of the English commander. 
 
 The English were posted on the opposite bank of 
 the Forth, and the Scots on the Abbey Craig, as I 
 have mentioned ; when, after some ineffectual nego- 
 tiation, the former, filled with wrath and disdain, 
 prepared to cross the river. They were permitted 
 to do so, without interruption, from the dawn of the 
 morning till eleven o'clock — a forbearance which 
 surely ought to have excited their suspicion, more 
 especially as there was only one bridge over the 
 deep and broad stream. At eleven o'clock, when 
 
FLAYING A PRIEST. 
 
 229 
 
 perhaps one half the army was fairly over, the 
 hridge suddenly gave way. The main beam had 
 been sawed so artfully that the removal of a single 
 wedge was sufficient to cause the downfall of the 
 whole ; and, at the blast of a signal horn, a man 
 concealed beneath in a basket struck the fateful 
 blow. 
 
 The English, notwithstanding, perceiving that 
 they were fairly embarked in the adventure, ad- 
 vanced with the usual courage of that nation, 
 determining to gain the victory under the eyes of 
 their comrades, from whom they had been thus cut 
 off. The Scots, seeing the movement, retreated in 
 apparent disorder ; but only far enough to allow a 
 considerable body of their forces to make a compass 
 round the Abbey Craig, and thus surround the 
 enemy. The carnage then commenced, for notwith- 
 standing the heroic defence of the English, it can 
 scarcely be called a battle ; and, after a loss of five 
 thousand men, they fled across the Forth by the 
 adjacent fords, or by swimming. 
 
 The singular thing is, that Wallace appears to 
 have calculated upon his victory with absolute 
 certainty ; for he posted a body of troops in the 
 neighbouring mountains for the express purpose 
 of annoying the English in their retreat. Among 
 the slain was Hugh Cressingham, an ecclesiastic, 
 Edward's High Treasurer in Scotland ; and the 
 Scots disgraced their cause and their victory, by 
 flaying oft* his skin to make girths for their horses. 
 
 The stratagems said to have been used by Bruce 
 x 
 
230 
 
 MIRACLE. 
 
 at the battle of Bannockburn — and which were pos- 
 sibly suggested by those of Wallace mentioned above, 
 are in general, well known. The following religious 
 artifice, however — whether the credit be due to 
 Bruce or the priest, is less so. The king had or- 
 dered his chaplain to bring to the field a precious, 
 and indeed inestimable relic, the arm of St. Fillan, 
 a favourite patron of Bruce ; but while in the act 
 of paying his devotions before it, in the presence of the 
 whole army, he was astonished to see the lid of the 
 shrine open, and then immediately shut, of its own 
 accord. The chaplain, hereupon, in a religious trans- 
 port, mingled apparently with some temporal fear, 
 confessed to Bruce a deceit which he had practised. 
 Afraid, as he said, that the precious relic might fall 
 into the hands of the enemy, if the Scots were de- 
 feated, he had left it at home, and brought only the 
 silver chest in which it was kept. The opening and 
 shutting of this holy shrine could proceed from no- 
 thing else than the miraculous arrival of the saint's 
 arm : and accordingly, on opening the box, the relic 
 was found in its usual place. This anecdote is re- 
 lated by Fordun, a historian not remarkable for 
 veracity ; but is so well suited to the manners of 
 the times, that if not true, it must be considered a 
 very admirable invention. 
 
 It was in this battle, the reader remembers, that 
 the fine incident took place of the whole Scottish 
 host, just previous to the onset, falling on their knees 
 before the crucifix held up to them by the abbot of 
 Inchaffray. The circumstance is described in Mar- 
 
BLOODY FOLD. 
 
 231 
 
 mion in a fine poetical spirit ; but perhaps the dry, 
 simple, nervous words of Barbour are still more 
 effective. 
 
 And when the English king had sight 
 Of them kneeling : he said in hie, 
 " Yon folk kneeleth to ask mercy." 
 Sir Ingram said, " Bye my sooth now, 
 They ask mercy, but none at you ; 
 For their trespass to God they cry. 
 I tell thee a thing sickerly, 
 That yon men will all win or die, 
 For doubt of dead they will not flee." 
 
 Buchanan says that the English king was the first 
 to fly,, but he is contradicted by all other writers, 
 who affirm that Edward could not be persuaded to 
 retire till Sir Aylmer de Vallance took hold of his 
 bridle, and led him off. So fiercely and valiantly 
 was the battle contested, that even after all was 
 over, the earl of Gloucester rallied his own vassals, 
 and made a stand at a place called the Bloody Fold, 
 where they were almost all cut to pieces. The body 
 of this gallant nobleman was treated with becoming 
 respect. It was carried to the church of St. Ninian 
 for the night, and afterwards sent to Edward to be 
 interred in England. 
 
 Scott appears in the notes to Marmion, to have 
 some doubt of his own historical truth, while des- 
 cribing the stratagem of the pitfalls. 
 
 Rushing, ten thousand horsemen came, 
 With spears in rest, and hearts on flame, 
 That panted for the shock ! 
 
232 STRATAGEM OF THE PITFALLS. 
 
 With blazing crests and banners spread, 
 And trumpet clang and clamour dread, 
 The wide plain thunder'd on their tread, 
 
 As far as Stirling rock. 
 Down ! down ! in headlong overthrow, 
 Horsemen and horse, the foremost go, 
 
 Wild floundering on the field ! 
 
 They came like mountain-torrent red, 
 That thunders o'er its rocky bed ; 
 They broke like that same torrent's wave, 
 When swallow'd by a darksome cave. 
 Billows on billows burst and boil, 
 Maintaining still the stern turmoil, 
 And to their wild and tortured groan, 
 Each adds new terrors of its ow n. 
 
 Barbour does not mention this circumstance, but, 
 on the contrary, describes the advance of the enemy's 
 cavalry as being uninterrupted; and even the con- 
 curring testimony of other historians, especially in 
 relating a picturesque and romantic incident, might 
 weigh little against the evidence of a writer, who 
 lived so near the time of the action. There is other 
 evidence, however, on the popular side of the ques- 
 tion, still better than his — that of an eye witness — 
 of which Scott perhaps was not aware. It is con- 
 tained in the barbarous verses of Baston, a Carmelite 
 friar, who was found among the prisoners. This 
 person, who enjoyed a high reputation as a poet, had 
 been brought to the field by Edward, for the express 
 purpose of celebrating his anticipated victory ; and 
 when presented to Bruce, the Scottish hero offered 
 him his liberty on similar terms. The verses, alluding 
 to the stratagem, are as follow: — 
 
STIRLING. 
 
 233 
 
 Machina plena malibus pedibus formatnr equinis, 
 Concavas, cum palis, ne pcrgant, absque minis, 
 PU-bs foveas fodit, ut per eas labantur equestres, 
 Et peieant, si quos videant transire pedestres. 
 
 The stratagem, fallen upon by the poet himself, 
 for describing to the ear the tumult of the battle, is 
 not a whit inferior, in ingenuity, to that of King 
 Robert, for winning it. 
 
 Hie rapit, hie capit, hie terit, hie ferit, ecce dolores, 
 Vox tonat, aes sonat, hie ruit, hie luit, arctu modo res, 
 Hie secat, hie necat, hie docet, hie nocet, iste fugatur, 
 Hie latet, hie patet, hie premit, hie gemit, hie superatur, &c. 
 
 The town of Stirling is built on a ridge of rock, 
 rising from east to west, and terminated by a lofty 
 precipice, on which the castle stands. The very 
 same description, as Ave have seen, applies to Edin- 
 burgh ; and yet the character of the two towns is 
 altogether different. The hills and precipices around 
 Edinburgh, form part of the magnificent picture, of 
 which the city is the principal object, and while they 
 obstruct the view, elevate its beauty almost to the 
 sublime. Stirling, on the contrary, raising its lofty 
 head from a carse, or plain, of immense extent, and 
 said to have once been the bed of the Frith of 
 Forth, is almost isolated. The view from the castle- 
 hill extends, on a clear day, to the capital itself ; 
 while, on the other points of the compass, it is 
 only bounded by the Ochil and Campsie hills, and 
 the gigantic bulk of Ben-lomond. 
 
 This rock was the seat of a fortress at a very early 
 x 3 
 
234 
 
 FEAST OF SATYRS. 
 
 date ; but, till the accession of the house of Stewart, 
 very little is known about its fortunes. It was the 
 birth-place of James II., and a favourite residence of 
 the succeeding princes. The palace was built by 
 James V. Its form is quadrangular ; the exterior 
 walls are of polished stone ; and the whole is orna- 
 mented with statues, in the taste of that amorous 
 prince. On the south angle, of which the architec- 
 ture is much plainer, there is an apartment called 
 " Douglas's Room," which is supposed to have been 
 the scene of the murder of one of that family, per- 
 jjetrated by James II., with his own hand. If the 
 tradition be correct, this portion of the building is, 
 of course, the most ancient. 
 
 On the western side there is a low-roofed edifice, 
 originally a chapel, and it is here that the baptism of 
 James VI. took place. The father, although in the 
 town, was not present ; and Mr. Chambers, in his 
 " Picture," informs us, that a house is still pointed 
 out, where the imbecile Darnley spent the time of 
 the baptism, " with a few drinking companions, in 
 riotous and ostentatious debauchery." 
 
 Another thing occurred to astonish the congregated 
 nobles and ambassadors who witnessed the ceremony, 
 and this was the entrance, after the first course of 
 the feast, of a company of satyrs. Mary's taste had 
 been formed at the French court, where such shows 
 had been long in fashion ;* and it never occurred to 
 
 * The madness of Charles VI. was brought back, and rendered incura- 
 ble by the fright he received from his dress catching fire, while he was 
 arrayed in this fantastic garb at a ball. 
 
HUMANE SCRUPLES. 
 
 235 
 
 her that her subjects could dislike or misapprehend 
 them. The Scottish nobles, however, felt them- 
 selves affronted by the exhibition; and a tumult 
 arose in the hall, which might have fearfully marred 
 the festivity of the day had not the satyrs vanished 
 as suddenly as they came. It is probable that some 
 religious scruples were at the bottom of this ab- 
 surdity ; for many of the lords stood outside the 
 door of the chapel while mass was performing, and 
 the Countess of Argyle, who assisted, was condemned 
 to make the amende honorable in the kirk. 
 
 When James VI. came to have a son himself, the 
 young prince was baptized in the same place; and 
 the ceremony was followed by exhibitions quite as 
 strange as that of poor Mary, though infinitely more 
 gaudy. James, it appears, magnanimously desired 
 that his pageant should be drawn into the room by a 
 lion ; but, taught perhaps, by the humane scruples 
 of Bottom and his comrades, he abandoned the scheme 
 from the fear of frightening the ladies. 
 
 A moor, therefore, was chosen instead ; and when 
 the first course was removed, the company were 
 astonished by the sudden clang of trumpets, and still 
 more so by the entrance, in the midst, of a brown 
 and brawny man, magnificently attired, and hung 
 with gold chains, dragging in, by means of golden 
 harness, a triumphal car. The car contained a table 
 covered with choice fruits ; which were served to the 
 guests by six damsels, three in white, and three in 
 crimson satin, embroidered with gold and silver, 
 wearing crowns on their heads, and their flowing 
 
236 
 
 THE PAGEANT SHIP. 
 
 hair ornamented with feathers, pearls, and jewels. 
 Besides these, there were Ceres, Fecunditia, Fides, 
 Concordia, and sundry other damsels, all with their 
 appropriate emblems, explained in Latin mottos 
 attached. 
 
 But this was not all. No sooner had the company 
 recovered from this visitation, than a ship, eighteen 
 feet by three, and forty feet from the keel to the 
 mast-head, sailed into the room. The cordage was 
 of silk, and her blocks gold ; she carried thirty-six 
 guns, and was navigated by six mariners and a pilot. 
 The passengers consisted of a band of fourteen mu- 
 sicians — with Arion as leader ; and on the forecastle 
 stood Neptune, Thetis, and Triton. To complete the 
 exhibition, three syrens marshalled her the way, 
 dancing before her ; and so she came gallantly on, 
 discharging her guns, and music, and Triton playing 
 his horn with all his might. The cargo turned out 
 to be sweatmeats, in chrystal glasses, shaped like 
 divers fishes ; and these being delivered at the table, 
 and the end of her voyage safely accomplished, a 
 thanksgiving was said, the hundred and twenty- 
 eighth psalm sung, and the ship sailed away. 
 
 Before dismissing the subject of Stirling Castle, we 
 present the reader with a view of the " court of 
 guard." 
 
 Through narrow loop, and casement barr'd, 
 
 The sunbeams sought the court of guard, 
 
 And, struggling with the smoky air, 
 
 Deaden'd the torches' yellow glare. 
 
 In comfortless alliance shone 
 
 The lights through arch of b!acken'd stone, 
 
THE GUARD ROOM. 
 
 237 
 
 And show'd wild shapes in garb of war, 
 Faces deform'd with beard and scar, 
 All haggard from the midnight watch, 
 And fever'd with the stern debauch ; 
 For the oak table's massive board, 
 Flooded with wine, with fragments stor'd, 
 And benches drain'd, and cups o'erthrown, 
 Show'd in what sport the night had flown. 
 Some, weary, snor'd on floor and bench 
 Some labour'd still their thirst to quench ; 
 Some, chill'd with watching, spread their hands 
 O'er the huge chimney's dying brands, 
 While round them, or beside them flung, 
 At every step their harness rung. 
 
 The moment chosen by the artist is when Ellen 
 enters conducted by the harper, Allan. 
 
 Bertram his forward step withstood; 
 And, burning in his vengeful mood, 
 Old Allan, though unfit for strife, 
 Laid hand upon his dagger knife ; 
 But Ellen boldly stepp'd between, 
 And dropp'd at once the tartan screen : 
 So, from his morning cloud appears 
 The sun of May, through summer tears. 
 The savage soldiery amaz'd, 
 As on descended angel gaz'd ; 
 Ev'n hardy Brent, abash'd and tamed, 
 Stood half admiring, half ashamed. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 When sated with the martial show 
 That peopled all the plain below, 
 The wandering eye could o'er it go, 
 And mark the distant city glow 
 
 With gloomy splendour red; 
 For on the smoke-wreaths, huge and slow, 
 That round her sable turrets flow, 
 
 The morning beams were shed, 
 And tinged them with a lustre proud, 
 Like that which streaks a thunder cloud. 
 
 We now cross the country from the Forth to the 
 Clyde, not exactly in the line of the Roman wall, 
 but in a similar direction. The route is not parti- 
 cularly interesting — and, at any rate, we have busi- 
 ness at Glasgow. 
 
 This place does not derive its origin from its 
 castle, but from its church ; a bishopric having been 
 erected here so early as the year 560, by St. Mungo. 
 The saint established himself on a lofty ridge of 
 land overlooking the Clyde, although not close by 
 the banks ; and gradually men built around him 
 those dwellings which were to become a great and 
 populous city. The cathedral, begun by St. Mungo, 
 was enlarged by his descendants,- and the town, 
 
GLASGOW. 
 
 239 
 
 begun by the cathedral, received a manifold increase 
 from the university, established in 1450. Prior to 
 this date, the population did not exceed fifteen hun- 
 dred, and the houses had hardly begun to descend 
 the ridge towards the Clyde. Now they formed 
 what at the present day is called the High Street, 
 extending downwards even to the cross ; from which 
 they began to diverge to the left along the line of 
 the GalJiowsgate — an ill-boding name now softened 
 into Gallowgate. 
 
 In 1484 a collegiate church was built in honour of 
 the blessed Virgin, on the site of the present Tron 
 church ; and the town of course proceeded in that 
 direction from the Gallowgate. The lower limb of 
 the cross, (of which the High Street was the upper, 
 and the Gallowgate and Trongate the lateral 
 ones,) was then formed by the Salt Market ; the 
 fishermen becoming considerable enough to require 
 a direct avenue to and from the river. Four years 
 afterwards the bishopric was erected into a metro- 
 politan see ; and the city of which we have des- 
 cribed the commencement, went on more rapidly 
 than my pen can follow. 
 
 The arms of Glasgow have long puzzled the he- 
 ralds. The bird, the tree, and the fish, maybe meant 
 for the symbols of air, earth, and water ; but what 
 connection with these has the bell, or the ring in the 
 fish's mouth ? This question is only partly answered 
 even by Macure ; he shirks the matter of the bell 
 altogether, and deals with the ring as follows. 
 
 A lady, he informs us, was unfortunate enough to 
 
240 
 
 TOWN ARMS. 
 
 lose her wedding ring ; and her husband, before 
 jealous, became now almost mad, the disappearance 
 of this pledge of connubial fidelity having confirmed 
 his worst suspicions. The lady, driven to her wit's 
 end, applied to Saint Mungo, and declared that if 
 she could not recover the ring it was all over with 
 her. The saint, who was then walking by the river 
 side, turned to a fisherman, in the act of throw- 
 ing his line, and begged of him the first fish he 
 should catch. The man complied, and Saint Mungo 
 opening the fish's mouth, took thence the lost ring, 
 and returned it to the astonished owner. 
 
 Macure, however, favours us with a poetical ex- 
 planation in Latin ; but I prefer quoting the transla- 
 tion he appends. The verses are very tolerable, 
 and afford an extraordinary contrast to his own style. 
 
 The salmon which a fish is of the sea, 
 
 The oak which springs from earth, that loftie tree, 
 
 The bird on it which in the air doth flee, 
 
 O Glasgow ! do presage all things to thee. 
 
 So while the air, or sea, or fertile earth 
 
 Do either give their nourishment or birth, 
 
 The bell that doth to public worship call 
 
 Says heaven will give most la-ting things of all. 
 
 The ring the token of the marriage is 
 
 Of things in heaven and earth both thee to bless. 
 
 Pennant says that Glasgow is the best built of 
 any second rate city he ever saw. Since then the 
 improvements that have been made are so great, 
 that one who has been absent for a few years finds 
 some difficulty in recognizing the town. If Glasgow 
 
TRONGATE. 
 
 241 
 
 was, in the time of Pennant, the first of the second- 
 rate cities, it must now be at least admitted into the 
 rank of the first-rate. The new town is hardly inferior 
 to that of Edinburgh ; and taking it as a whole, 
 there is certainly no other commercial city in the 
 empire superior to this in appearance. 
 
 The Trongate, or rather the line of street which 
 intersects the town from east to west, I have com- 
 pared, in a former chapter, to the High-street of 
 Edinburgh ; but since then I have been somewhat 
 disappointed by finding no disposition, in the various 
 authors I have consulted, to do this justice to the 
 capital of the west. All allow the coup d'ceil to be 
 fine, but no one appears to be particularly struck 
 with its magnificence ; and what appears, more than 
 anything, surprising to me is, that they describe the 
 picture as seen from the cross, instead of the oppo- 
 site direction. If any one — more particularly in 
 early morning — will plant himself at a considerable 
 distance to the west, perhaps as far as Buchanan 
 street, and look towards the cross, where the view 
 is terminated by spires and towers, he will, I have 
 no hesitation in saying, witness an effect in street 
 architecture which is not excelled in Europe. 
 
 Upon the whole, notwithstanding, Glasgow is far 
 from being an interesting city ; and the various local 
 historians, instead of making the most of their com- 
 paratively scanty materials, seem to have vied with 
 each other as to which should communicate the least 
 information. Mr. Denholm's book is beyond com- 
 
 Y 
 
242 
 
 HISTORIANS. 
 
 parison the best ; but his space was too small to 
 allow him to introduce the minute local details 
 of history and manners which are looked for in a 
 work of the kind. Mr. Cleland's Annals are indis- 
 pensable to the citizen, but of little value to any- 
 one else. As for Macure's History — it is a highly 
 curious and interesting book ; and, if perchance the 
 author had been endowed with a single grain of 
 sense, it might have been something more. As it 
 is, the severity with which it is treated by Watts, 
 in his Bibliotheca, is both unjust and in bad taste. 
 I would not curtail a single image, or dilute a 
 single eulogium, for all the rest of the histories of 
 Glasgow put together. 
 
 The principal lion is the Cathedral, supposed to 
 be the most entire specimen of gothic ecclesiastical 
 architecture in Scotland. It stands upon a lofty 
 eminence, whence a view of the whole town is ob- 
 tained ; but from the spire the spectacle is by far 
 the finest in this part of Scotland. To the east, 
 the whole vale of Clyde is spread out before the 
 traveller. At some distance in this direction, the 
 towers of Bothwell are seen rising out of seemingly 
 interminable groves, interspersed with towns and 
 villas. On the west, the castles of Mearns and 
 Cruickstone appear to the left, and, farther on, the 
 splendid rock and fortress of Dumbarton to the right. 
 The view is closed in on all sides by hills and moun- 
 tains, of varying magnitude and distance ; from 
 those of Cathkin and Campsie, to the splendid Tinto, 
 and the Alpine giants of Argyle. 
 
CATHEDRAL. 
 
 243 
 
 " Situated in a populous and considerable town/' 
 says Scott, " this solemn and massive pile has the 
 appearance of the most sequestered solitude. High 
 walls divide it from the buildings on one side ; on 
 the other, it is bounded by a ravine, through the 
 depth of which, and invisible to the eye, murmurs a 
 wandering rivulet, adding by its rushing noise to 
 the imposing solemnity of the scene. On the oppo- 
 site side of the ravine rises a steep bank, covered 
 with fir-trees closely planted, whose dusky shade 
 extends itself over the cemetery with an appropriate 
 and gloomy effect. The church-yard itself has a 
 peculiar character ; for though in reality extensive, 
 it is small in proportion to the number of respectable 
 inhabitants who are interred within it, and whose 
 graves are almost all covered with tomb-stones. 
 There is, therefore, no room for the long, rank grass 
 which, in the ordinary case, partially clothes the 
 surface in these retreats, where the wicked cease 
 from troubling, and the weary are at rest. The 
 broad, flat monumental stones are placed so close to 
 each other, that the precincts appear to be flagged 
 with them, and, though roofed only by the heavens, 
 resemble the floor of one of our English churches^ 
 where the pavement is covered with sepulchral in- 
 scriptions. The contents of these sad records of 
 mortality, the vain sorrows which they preserve, the 
 stern lessons which they teach of the nothingness of 
 humanity, the extent of ground which they so 
 closely cover, and their uniform and melancholy 
 tenor, reminded me of the roll of the prophet, which 
 
244 
 
 HONOURABLE TRAIT. 
 
 was "written within and without; and there were 
 written therein lamentation, and mourning, and woe." 
 
 The citizens of Glasgow have the credit of preserv- 
 ing their magnificent cathedral from the "wretched 
 ministers/' as Pennant calls them, who in 1708 ob- 
 tained a warrant for its destruction. When several 
 hundred workmen had assembled for this infernal 
 purpose, the crafts and incorporations of the city 
 crowded to the spot, and a tumult ensued which 
 threatened to end in bloodshed. The brave citizens, 
 however, having sworn that they would sacrifice 
 upon the spot the first man who put forth his hand 
 against the building, the destroyers were intimi- 
 dated, and at length dispersed. The provost of the 
 time, although of course not openly joining with the 
 mob, was not the least efficient of the disaffected. 
 "I am for destroying the cathedral," said he, "but 
 not before we build a new one." 
 
 The cathedral, after the reformation, contained 
 three different churches, as Gibson, in his history 
 of Glasgow tells, from a 'principle of economy. The 
 subterranean one is thus described by his predeces- 
 sor Macure, with laudable minuteness. 
 
 " The Barony Kirk, which is exactly under the 
 Inner Kirk, in time of popery was only a burial 
 place, in which it is said Saint Mungo the founder 
 is buried. It is of length one hundred and eight 
 foot, and seventy-two foot wide. It is supported 
 with sixty fine pillars, some of which are eighteen 
 foot in circumference ; the height of each pillar 
 from the floor to the roof is eighteen foot ; it is 
 
BARONY KIRK. 
 
 245 
 
 illuminated with forty-one windows, and is accom- 
 modated with three lofts (galleries), and sixty-nine 
 pews, or seats, each containing six, seven, or eight 
 persons, for conveniency to hear service." 
 
 But perhaps, with all due deference to the 
 Glasgow merchant, the description of Sir Walter 
 Scott will be found fully as intelligible, even 
 without the use of numbers — and perhaps more 
 interesting. 
 
 " Conceive one extensive range of low-browed, 
 damp, and twilight vaults, such as are used for 
 sepulchres in other countries, and had long been 
 dedicated to the same purpose in this, a portion of 
 which was seated with pews, and used as a church. 
 The part of the vaults thus occupied, though capable 
 of containing a congregation of many hundreds, 
 bore a small proportion to the darker and more 
 extensive caverns, which yawned around what may 
 be termed the inhabited space. In these waste 
 regions of oblivion, dusky banners and tattered 
 escutcheons, indicated the graves of those who were 
 once, doubtless, princes in Israel ! Inscriptions, 
 which could only be read by the painfull antiquary, 
 in language as obsolete as the act of devotional 
 charity which they implored, invited the passengers 
 to pray for the souls of those whose bodies rested 
 beneath." The annexed view is given at the mo- 
 ment when Francis Osbaldiston hears the mysterious 
 voice behind him in the vaults. 
 
 Notwithstanding the antiquity of the cathedral, 
 we are assured by Macure, that its age was nothing 
 y3 
 
246 
 
 DISASTROUS LOVES. 
 
 compared with that of the Blackfriar's church, 
 " which was the most ancientest building of Gothick 
 kind that could be seen in the kingdom." This 
 church was destroyed in a storm in the year 1666 ; 
 and the present college church, called at first the 
 New Kirk, was built on its site three years after. 
 
 In the High-street is the house where Darnley 
 resided, on his coming to Glasgow, after the baptism 
 of his son at Stirling. He was here seized with 
 some kind of bowel complaint, which report at- 
 tributed to poison ; and Mary immediately, forget- 
 ting the late insult he had offered her, flew to see 
 him. Her attentions on this occasion are stigmatized 
 as hypocrisy by the historians who advocate her 
 simplicity in his assassination. It is difficult, in 
 fact, to conceive, that she could so soon forget the 
 scene at Stirling. 
 
 Earth has no rage like love to hatred turn'd, 
 And hell no fury like a woman scorn'd. 
 
 Perhaps, however, the vicinity in which he now 
 was, so near to the castle of Cruickstone, brought 
 back some softer recollections, and fitted her mind 
 at least for pity and forgiveness. It was there that 
 the young and lovely queen first gave way to her 
 infatuated passion ; and there, I believe, the yew 
 tree still exists, under which the fateful whisper of 
 Darnley first sunk into her ear. The shade of these 
 funereal branches was, indeed, a fitting spot for the 
 consummation of such disastrous loves ; and a medal, 
 
DUMBARTON CASTLE. 
 
 247 
 
 struck afterwards by Mary, to commemorate the 
 event, is said to have contained the figure of the 
 accursed tree.* From this very spot she must have 
 seen the hill of Langside, where, some years after- 
 wards, she lost the battle, which, in its results, 
 involved the loss of her kingdom, her liberty, and 
 her life. 
 
 The military anecdotes connected with Glasgow 
 are not numerous, but one is of too extraordinary a 
 nature to be passed over. It resembles, besides, in 
 a very remarkable manner, the enterprise we have 
 described in the capture of Edinburgh Castle ; 
 although, in some of its details, it comes still nearer 
 to the celebrated escalade of the fortress of Fecamp, 
 by Boisrose. 
 
 In 1571 the Castle of Dumbarton, lower down the 
 Clyde, was in the hands of Queen Mary, who had 
 kept it triumphantly ever since the commencement 
 of the civil war. The regent, Lennox, felt himself, 
 of course, piqued in honour, as well as interest, to 
 capture it ; and, in the person of Captain Crawford, 
 of Jordan-hill, an agent at length arose, for the 
 execution of an enterprise, as daring and desperate 
 as any recorded in history. 
 
 The scheme was proposed to him by a soldier, 
 who had deserted from the garrison of Dumbarton, 
 and who, in testimony of his fidelity, offered to lead 
 the way himself. This fortress, as the reader knows, 
 crowns the summit of one of the most extraordinary 
 
 * Pennant contradicts this. He says the tree on the coin was a palm. 
 
248 FRIGHTFUL PREDICA3IENT. 
 
 rocks in Scotland ; and which I can best describe by 
 saying, that, at a little distance, it bears a very 
 striking resemblance to Saint Michel, on the coast 
 of Normandy, so well delineated in the admirable 
 views of Mr. Stanneld, given in our last volume. 
 Crawford, a gallant and determined officer, agreed 
 to the proposal without hesitation ; and, on a moon- 
 light night, he marched from Glasgow at the head of 
 a small party of kindred spirits. 
 
 It was midnight when they reached the bottom of 
 the rock. The moon had set, and a thick fog added 
 to the darkness of the hour. So far all was well. 
 They chose the steepest part of the cliff, as the one 
 likely to be least guarded, planted their scaling 
 ladder, and began to ascend their way, marshalled 
 by the deserter. Scarcely, however, had they fairly 
 left the surface of the earth, when the frail machine 
 fell, and the whole party came to the ground. This 
 was an evil omen ; but Crawford, creeping up the 
 bare and almost perpendicular front of the rock above, 
 fastened the top of the ladder to a tree, and once 
 more they began the ascent. 
 
 They had ascended half way, when another ob- 
 stacle, still more appalling, presented itself. What- 
 ever may have been the courage of the guide at first, 
 it had now deserted him. Hung midway in the air, 
 in a sea of tumbling mist, he lost all recollection. 
 The remembrance of his wrongs, and the hope of 
 revenge died simultaneously within him : he became 
 stupified with terror, and clung silent, and ap- 
 parently lifeless to the ladder, without the power 
 
COMMERCE OF GLASGOW. 
 
 249 
 
 either to go up or down. To throw him down head- 
 long, even after first slaying him, would have been 
 not only cruel but dangerous ; for a single cry from 
 his lips, were it his last, would rouse the garrison, 
 Crawford, therefore, with singular presence of mind, 
 bound him with a cord to the ladder ; which, descend- 
 ing for the second time, they turned on the other 
 side. The desperadoes then mounted, as undaunted 
 as ever, over their comrade's belly. 
 
 When they at last reached the ramparts, they 
 found, as they had expected, that the garrison were 
 altogether unprepared for an attack from so pre- 
 posterous a quarter. Lord Fleming, the governor, 
 escaped with difficulty alone and in a small boat ; 
 and Crawford found himself in possession of this 
 redoubted fortress without the loss of a man. 
 
 Among his prisoners was the Archbishop of Saint 
 Andrews, the uncle of Bothwellhaugh ; and this un- 
 happy prelate, being delivered into the hands of the 
 regent, was immediately carried to Stirling and 
 hanged without trial. 
 
 The immense commerce of Glasgow did not even 
 receive its commencement before the year 1668. It 
 it said that a merchant called Walter Gibson became 
 in that year the founder of the city's wealth by a 
 speculation more extensive than ha«d yet been heard 
 of. He cured and exported to France eighteen 
 hundred barrels of herrings, in return for which he 
 received brandy and salt. These he sold at home to 
 immense profit, which enabled him to purchase the 
 vessel, and two other ships besides. He then 
 
250 
 
 PIOUS RESPITE. 
 
 launched into serious business ; trading to America, 
 as well as various European ports; and thus gave its 
 impulse to that commerce which was one day to rank 
 Glasgow as the second city of trade in the empire. 
 
 Before concluding this chapter, I cannot refrain 
 from dragging in, head and shoulders, an anecdote of 
 a very different nature. It is told by Pennant, of 
 Archibald, duke of Argyle, a portrait of whom, by 
 Ramsay, was in the Exchange at his visit to Glasgow. 
 When this nobleman was a lord of session, having 
 occasion to grant a respite to a criminal under sen- 
 tence, he did it in the following terms. 
 
 " Edinburgh, February 28, 1728. 
 " I, Archibald, earl of Islay, do hereby prorogate 
 and continue the life of John Ruddell, writer in 
 Edinburgh, to the term of Whitsunday next, and no 
 longer, by G — d. 
 
 Islay, J. P. D." 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 A stern and lone, yet lovely road, 
 
 As e'er the foot of minstrel trocle ! — 
 
 Where he who winds, 'twixt rock and wave, 
 
 May hear the headlong torrent rave, 
 
 And like a steed in frantic fit, 
 
 That flings the froth from curb and bit, 
 
 May view her chafe her waves to spray, 
 
 O'er every rock that bars her way, 
 
 Till foam-globes on her eddies ride, 
 
 Thick as the schemes of human pride, 
 
 That down life's current drive amain, 
 
 As frail, as frothy, and as vain ! 
 
 From the country of commerce and manufactures 
 we ascend , along the banks of the Clyde, towards a 
 region of poetry and romance, termed in the vulgar 
 language of earth, the Middle Ward of Clydesdale, 
 or the Fruit Lands. Before entering the village of 
 Uddingston, the sumptuous ruins of Bothwell Castle 
 appear dominating the river, on the northern bank. 
 It is not easy to form a conception of the effect of 
 this building raising its stern and hoary head in the 
 midst of a scene chiefly remarkable for its quiet 
 beauty. The castle originally occupied a space be- 
 tween two and three hundred feet long, and one 
 hundred broad; and at each angle of the oblong 
 square which it described there arose a lofty turret. 
 
252 
 
 BOTHWELL CASTLE. 
 
 Three of these, or at least two, are still nearly en- 
 tire ; and the walls, now covered with ivy, are sixty 
 feet high, with the enormous breadth of fifteen feet. 
 
 The origin of this building is unknown. We 
 know, however, that in the time of Edward I. it 
 was a considerable fortress, and the residence of his 
 governor. It afterwards fell into the hands of the 
 Scottish party, and was used as a prison for those 
 taken at the battle of Bannockburn. It was after- 
 wards the property of Lord Bothwell, from whom 
 it passed into the hands of the Douglases, remaining 
 a seat of that powerful house till their attainder in 
 1445. In 1715 it again reverted to the same 
 family. To the eastward of the castle is the house 
 of the present Lord Douglas, a handsome, modern 
 edifice, built of reddish stone. 
 
 Immediately opposite Bothwell Castle, on the 
 other side of the river, are the ruins of Blantyre 
 Priory ; supposed to have been founded before the 
 end of the thirteenth century, and to have been 
 tenanted by a colony from the monastery of Jed- 
 burgh. 
 
 Hamilton Palace, a heavy, massive pile of build- 
 ing, stands near the confluence of the Avon and the 
 Clyde, in the midst of a rich and beautiful landscape. 
 It is said to contain the finest picture gallery in Scot- 
 land. The grand piece by Rubens, of Daniel in the 
 lions' den, is greatly prized by connoisseurs : a de- 
 tailed description of it is given by Gilpin, in a fine 
 strain of philosophical criticism. Among others of 
 greater note in point of art, there is a portrait of 
 
TILLIETUDLEM. 
 
 253 
 
 of Mary Stewart, said to have been sent, together 
 with a ring, to the representative of the faithful 
 Hamiltons, just before her execution. 
 
 Craignethan, otherwise Draffen, or Draphane 
 Castle, where Mary is said to have rested on her 
 escape from Lochleven, rises in a very magnificent 
 manner, from the banks of the Clyde. It was long 
 a strong hold of the Hamiltons, (although now, I 
 believe, the property of Lord Douglas), and bears 
 every mark of having been a fortress of considerable 
 importance. I can find no description of it, how- 
 ever, fuller than that given by Scott himself, in Old 
 Mortality, which I accordingly subjoin. 
 
 " They were at this moment at an arched gate- 
 way, battlemented and flanked with turrets, one 
 whereof was totally ruinous, excepting the lower 
 story, which served as a cow-house to the peasant, 
 whose family . inhabited the turret that remained 
 entire. The gate had been broken down by Monk's 
 soldiers during the civil war, and had never been 
 replaced, therefore presented no obstacle to Both- 
 well and his party. The avenue, very steep and 
 narrow, and causewayed with large round stones, 
 ascended the side of the precipitous bank in an 
 oblique and zigzag course, now showing, now hiding, 
 a view of the tower, and its exterior bulwarks, which 
 seemed to rise almost perpendicularly above their 
 heads." 
 
 This, the reader perceives, is the Tillietudlem of 
 Old Mortality, and he will recognise Cuddie Head- 
 rigg climbing up the steep with his companions to 
 
 z 
 
254 
 
 FALLS OF CLYDE. 
 
 take the castle by surprise — and to be put to flight 
 by a discharge of scalding brose from his sweetheart. 
 
 An interior view is also annexed, representing the 
 identical apartment in which his most sacred ma- 
 jesty condescended to take his dejeune. The chair 
 still stands at the table, sanctified from all meaner 
 uses by the touch of the royal person ; and the lady 
 Margaret Bellenden, looks like a woman who is not 
 likely to forget the circumstance. In the foreground 
 her daughter is watching, with breathless attention, 
 the old major in the recess on the left hand, soliciting 
 Claverhouse for the life of Henry Morton. 
 
 The vignette at the commencement of the volume 
 gives another interior view of this very interesting 
 building ; being the gallery where Tarn Halliday 
 guarding his prisoner, is bribed by Jenny with a 
 smile and a crown. 
 
 Lanark, the county town, and the place where 
 Wallace made the first of his glorious efforts, lies in 
 the region of the Falls of Clyde ; and thence, accord- 
 ingly, the traveller usually sets forth on one of the 
 most interesting excursions afforded by Scotland. 
 
 The smallest of the three celebrated falls is that 
 of Bonnyton. The Clyde above it rolls along, in a 
 magnificent and unbroken volume, through groves of 
 forest trees, till all on a sudden it plunges roaring into 
 the abyss. Its agitation does not diminish ; it seems 
 to be aware that its terrors have only commenced ; 
 and on it goes rushing and groaning over rock and 
 precipice, towards the fall of Corra Linn. 
 
 The banks now assume the character of immense 
 
GROTESQUE SITUATION. 
 
 255 
 
 walls, except where they overhang the river; and 
 their summits are clothed with large trees which 
 bend their branches over to the flood. The river, 
 when it reaches the fall, plunges first in a compa- 
 ratively narrow strait ; which, shelving downwards, 
 opens at the same time, and the torrent rushes head- 
 long, in a broad and magnificent sheet, to the bottom 
 of the gulph. Sometimes, however, when the river 
 is full, the division in the stream is not perceptible, 
 and the grand and awful spectacle is beheld of a 
 single torrent plunging down a precipice of eighty- 
 four feet. At a considerable distance above the 
 second division of the fall stands the ancient castle 
 of Corra, formerly belonging to a branch of the 
 Sommerville family. A more frightful, and at the 
 same time grotesque situation, for a human dwelling, 
 can hardly be conceived. It is said that the building 
 trembles, or rather shudders so strongly at the shock 
 of the fall, as to spill water from a glass! 
 
 The Fall of Stonebyers is considerably broader, 
 although not so lofty as that of Corra Linn. 
 Pennant remarks that it has more of the horrible 
 in it than either of the other two. Like that of 
 Corra Linn, it consists of three divisions in ordinary 
 weather, which unite into one when the river is 
 full, and thunder down a height of fifty-eight feet. 
 The torrent is here considerably broader than else- 
 where ; and the vapour rising from it in a thick 
 cloud, gives a very peculiar character to the scene 
 viewed through its medium, 
 
256 
 
 BON REPOS ! 
 
 Having traversed that portion of Scotland — 
 though not adhering to the exact line — which was 
 once nominally under the Roman dominion, we find 
 ourselves, in ascending the Clyde, returning towards 
 the borders of the kingdom. 
 
 It may be that, on another day, I may launch my 
 light shallop in those seas, 
 
 Round twice an hundred islands roll'd, 
 From Hirt that hears their northern roar, 
 To the green Islay's fertile shore ; 
 
 and it may be, that, on yet another day, I may spur 
 my Pegasus across the marches, to harry the English 
 side. But, in the meantime, instead of boasting of 
 my future deeds, it is necessary to give myself — and 
 the reader — some repose after the present. 
 
 Printed by J. Haddon and Co., Doctors' Commons.