Scharnhorst was despatched forthwith on his king's behalf to meet the Emperor Alexander; and the famous treaty of Kalisch was signed which gave new life to Europe, for it framed the new coalition against Napoleon under the weight of which he was to fall. Prussia pledged herself to bring 80,000 men at once into the field, exclusive of all garrisons and depôts-a warlike effort which, it has been truly said, could only have been made because the warm devotion of her people could be made instantly available by the wise measures which Scharnhorst had prepared in time of peace.

A few weeks later a mighty army of the allied troops was entering Saxony, its Prussians under Blücher; and at Blücher's side rode his old chief of staff, whose strategy for the new campaign was the plan accepted for it by the allied sovereigns. To advance boldly to the Elbe, to strike in on Napoleon's flank as he crossed the historic plain beyond it with the levies he was hurrying from the Rhine, to take an offensive part in fact from the very first against the great master of offensive war: such was the simple and sufficient design. On May 2nd, within sight of the great stone that marks the spot where the 'Lion of the North' gave his life in the cause of northern Protestantism, the armies closed desperately, and the new battle of Lutzen surpassed in fierceness even the crowning contest of the great religious war two centuries before. Struck down in this first encounter, as he led on the young troops sword in hand; dying afterwards of a wound thought so little dangerous that he had rashly undertaken, before it was healed, a long journey to Vienna in hope to win Austria to the cause of European freedom; Scharnhorst was taken away too soon to reap the smallest fruit of his long toil. Yet he had not singled out and trained and infused his own spirit into other men in vain. Gneisenau guided the army of Blücher from victory to victory, until it shared in the finishing triumph of Waterloo. Clausewitz lived to write the great work on War, the teachings of which were to make Prussia the foremost military power of the world. And though long guided and taught by others, she does not forget the strategist and writer to whom the first inspiration was due, the hero who showed her that in humiliation. may be found the path to new honours. Nor should Scharnhorst's name be unknown in our own land. For under a British general were won his first honours. From our own monarch came his first rewards. Under England's banner he first illustrated the truth he taught in action as in word, that the highest studies of the closet are not incompatible with the most splendid merit in the field.

ART. II.-The Book of Carlaverock: Memoirs of the Maxwells, Earls of Nithsdale, Lords Maxwell and Herries. By WILLIAM FRASER. Vol. I. Memoirs. Vol. II. Correspondence and Charters. Quarto. Edinburgh: 1873.

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Few cavalcades ever presented a gayer appearance than that which issued from the gates of Merrie Carlisle' in the summer of the year of grace 1300. In command was no less a person than the Malleus Scottorum,' Edward I., King of England and Scotland, Lord of Ireland, Prince of Wales and Duke of Aquitaine, and with him his eldest son, the future king. In attendance upon their liege lord were eighty-nine of the noblest barons and knights of the realm, and their retainers 3,000 strong. They set forth,' says an eyewitness, not in coats and surcoats, but on powerful and costly chargers; and that they might not be taken by surprise, they were well and securely armed. There were many rich 'caparisons embroidered on silks and satins; many a beautiful pennon fixed to a lance; and many a banner displayed. And afar off was the noise heard of the neighing of horses: hills and valleys were everywhere covered with sumpter horses and waggons, with provisions and sacks of tents and pavilions. And the days were long and fine. They pro'ceeded by easy journeys, arranged in four squadrons.'

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At the head of the first division rode the good Earl of Lincoln, burning with valour,' and with him Robert de Fitz Walter, who well knew the use of arms, and so used them 'when required;' the Earl of Hereford, a rich and elegant 'young man,' and Nicholas de Segrave, whom nature had adorned in body and enriched in heart.' Next came the Earl of Warren, one that well knew how to lead noble and honourable men.' The third squadron was commanded by the King. In his banner were three leopards courant,' says our authority, who revels in the heraldic details, of fine gold, set on red, fierce, haughty, and cruel; thus placed to signify that like them the King is dreadful, fierce, and proud to his enemies, for his bite is slight to none who inflame his anger: ' not but his kindness is soon rekindled towards such as seek his friendship or submit to his power.' With him was John of Brittany, well deserving the preference of being nearest,

* The Siege of Carlaverock, translated by Sir Harris Nicolas. London 1828. 8vo.

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having assiduously served his uncle from his infancy, and left his father and other relations to dwell in his household, when the King had occasion for his followers;' also 'Robert, the Lord of Clifford, to whom reason gives consolation, who 'always remembers to overcome his enemies. He may call 'Scotland to bear witness of his noble lineage, that originated well and nobly, as he is of the race of the noble Marshal 'who at Constantinople fought with an unicorn and struck him 'dead beneath him. If I were a young maiden,' continues the enraptured chronicler, I would give him my heart and person, so great is his fame.' Last of all came the King's son, a youth of seventeen, and bearing arms for the first time. He was a well-proportioned and handsome person, of a courteous disposition and intelligent; and desirous of finding an occa'sion to display his prowess. He managed his steed wonderfully well, and bore with a blue label the arms of the good King his father.' An auxiliary force was commanded by Anthony Beck, Bishop of Durham, ever at hand when there was fighting the most vigilant clerk in the kingdom—a true mirror of Christianity.'

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But why all this parade? How strange in our modern ears sounds the answer, that the mission of these heroes of a new Iliad was nothing more than the siege of a border castle in the sister kingdom of Scotland.

Carlaverock Castle, in Dumfriesshire, was in former days a place of no little importance, being in fact the key to the south-west of Scotland, and consequently giving its possessors very considerable influence in that portion of the kingdom. The original castle is said to have been erected in the sixth century, on a site where the walls were then washed by the waters of the Solway Frith. The newer building occupied a very strong position, the Frith guarding the approach in one direction, and the great Lochar Moss, with its vast expanse of wild and irreclaimable moorland, in another. During the Scottish wars of Edward I., the castle continued to hold out after those of Edinburgh, Elgin, Dunbar, and others had been reduced to submission. Every machine known in those rude days of military engineering seems to have been brought into requisition at the siege. We are told of battering-rams, robinets, springalds, a sow (something like the Roman testudo), a multo, which the Liber Quotidianus Garderobæ' is kind enough to explain to be an engine for throwing stones, and a berfrarium, which it does not explain. After a gallant defence of two whole days the besieged were obliged to capitulate, when it was found to the king's great astonishment that the

garrison amounted to no more than sixty men. The metrical chronicler assures us that the king commanded that life and limb should be spared them, and that each should receive a new garment. The Chronicle of Lanercost' gives a somewhat different version: Many that were found within the 'castle were hanged.'

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After the siege the castle continued more or less securely in the possession of the English till the year 1355, when Roger Kirkpatrick, of Closeburn, wrested it out of their hands. Not long afterwards it was the scene of a fearful tragedy. father had aided Bruce in murdering the Red Comyn in the Dominican church at Dumfries. Sir James of Lyndsay, a descendant from another sharer in the murder, was being entertained in the castle, when, in revenge for Kirkpatrick's having married a beautiful lady of whom he himself had been enamoured, he stole to his host's bedside and stabbed him in his sleep. The night was dark; he lost his way, and galloped fruitlessly till morning, when he was captured at no great distance from the castle. He was brought to trial, and, notwithstanding the exertions of his wife, Egidia Stewart, a niece of the king, he was executed in June 1357.

Lyndsay's body is said to have been buried in the castle rampart, precisely at a place where some few years ago the skeleton of a tall and powerfully-built man was found, and it seems highly probable that the remains were those of Sir James. For, though the castle then in existence was levelled 'to the ground,' there are reasons for supposing that the new buildings, erected by Sir Robert Maxwell, of Maxwell and Carlaverock, in 1370-1407, were placed upon the old site, and that the castle was not so entirely demolished but that some portions, still existing, were found available for the new fortress. A more serious demolition overtook it in 1570, when the Earl of Sussex was sent against it, in revenge for the part the then owner had taken in behalf of Mary Queen of Scots; but its final destruction was not accomplished till 1640-two years only after it had been repaired and fortified by the first Earl of Nithsdale.

In that year it was besieged by the Covenanters, and held out gallantly for thirteen weeks. King Charles had encouraged the earl by promises of assistance, but at last was compelled to advise him to deliver up the place on the best conditions he could yet. Lieutenant-colonel Home took possession, whilst the earl, his friends, followers, and soldiers, each with his arms and shot, with all their bag and baggage, trunks, household stuff belonging on their honour and credit

to his Lordship and them, were to have safe conduct to Langholm or any other place within Nithsdale.

No sooner, however, were the earl's party safely out of the way than the conquerors forgot their promises, and seized the furniture. A list of the things intromitted with' by the Covenanting colonel has been preserved, and is printed by Mr. Fraser. It affords, as he says, an illustration of the magnificent hospitality of the baronial house of Nithsdale in the seventeenth century. Among other articles mentioned are no less than eighty-five beds; of these beds were five, two of silk and three of cloth, consisting each of five coverings, with massy silk fringes of half-a-quarter deep, and a counterpane of the same stuff, all laid with braid silk lace, and a small fringe about, with feather-bed, bolster, blankets, &c., every bed estimated at 1107. sterling.' The earl's library was also carried off, which had cost him 2007. This may seem at first sight a small sum for a nobleman's library, but it would repre-sent something like 1,000l. now. The drawing-room was hung with cloth of silver, and the chairs and stools in it 'were covered with red velvet, with fringes of crimson silk and gilt nails. Besides the comfortable beds, the occupants of the castle had in the wine cellars four barrels of sack and threehogsheads of French wines.' (Vol. i. p. 61.)

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The castle was soon afterwards demolished by order of the Committee of Estates, and was never occupied again as a placeof residence; but its crumbling walls, its massive towers, and its triple portcullis still succeed in rendering it one of the finest specimens of the old baronial residences of Scotland.* Close by it is the hill of Wardlaw, or Barrow Hill, covered with the remains of ancient camps, British and Roman. It was a convenient place of rendezvous for the clan, and from it they got their slogan or war-cry of A Wardlaw.'

But it is time to inquire about the possessors of this lordly castle. In later periods of Scottish history they are known as Maxwells. Their origin is traced to a certain Maccus, son of the Undwin, who had to fly in consequence of the invasion of William the Norman, and who sought refuge, as Edgar Atheling did, in Scotland. He must have been very young at the time, or have lived to a very advanced age, as the time of his death is put about 1150. We are quite at liberty to suppose

*It was, we believe, the castle of Carlaverock that Sir Walter Scott had in his mind in the description of the majestic ruin of a similar abode in Guy Mannering,' and the scene of that admirable novel, on the wild coast of Galloway, is not very remote from Carlaverock itself.