CHAPTER X.

THE HOUSE OF STUART.

IF it be true that the despot cuts down the tree, while the wise monarch only prunes it; if it be true that a sovereign may enact and rescind laws, but that he cannot create or annihilate a single virtue, then it will be his constant aim, in seeking to reform what is amiss, to preserve and consolidate all that is good. Let men philosophise as they may, virtue is something more and something better than the mere emotion of which we are conscious in contemplating certain actions. The actions have in themselves the eternal element of that which is good or bad, and it is this inherent character of the actions which gives birth to corresponding feelings in their doer or their beholder. The impression and the sense of this virtue we may for a time lose in that tumult of passion which so often disturbs and agitates the human breast, but the virtue itself is an imperishable thing. It is like the image of the sky on the bosom of a lake, which vanishes, indeed, while the waters are ruffled, but which reappears, more and more distinctly, as every little wave sinks gradually to rest, till the returning calm shows again in all its purity the image of that heaven which has never ceased to shine upon it. The stability of nations being in the degree of their virtue, it becomes princes to foster among their people all that is pure and good. And to do this, they themselves must be examples of pureness and of goodness. They must not only commend what is excellent and exalted, but love and practise it. They should be as lights to guide, and not as beacons to warnmodels to copy, and not deformed and ugly things from which to turn away.

This is important, not only for their own princely influence and happiness, but equally so that law may exert its legitimate force on the mind and conduct of their subjects. A man whose soul is in a state of wild agitation, is conscious of almost nothing but the agitation. Hence it is, that in a period of deep warfare, nations-princes and their people-lose all sense of moral distinctions. They are carried away by the force of passion, and are guilty of deeds from which, in moments when no such feeling possesses them, they would shrink with instinctive horror. "While the human heart is thus agitated by the flux and reflux of a thousand passions, that sometimes unite and sometimes oppose each other, to engrave laws on it is to engrave them, not on the sand, but on a wave that is never at ret What eyes are piercing enough to read the sacred characters? Vain

declamation! If we do not read the characters, it is not because our sight is too weak to discern them; it is because we do not fix our eyes on them; or if they be indistinguishable, it is only for a moment. The heart of man may be considered, allegorically, as an island almost level with the water that bathes it. On the pure white marble of the island are engraved the holy precepts of the law of nature. Near these characters is one who bends his eyes respectfully on the inscription, and reads it aloud. He is the lover of virtue-the genius of the island. The water around is in constant agitation. The slightest zephyr raises it into billows. It then covers the inscription. We no longer see the characters. We no longer hear the genius read. But the calm soon rises from the bosom of the storm. The island re-appears, white as before, and the genius resumes his employment." And it would be well, while he reads, that every ear would listen to the voice of law. Government and law are divine things, and as long as they keep within their appropriate sphere, submission and obedience may be enforced as an imperative duty. While the ruler does not bear the sword in vain, those whom he rules cannot, without tremendous responsibility and serious blame, trifle with his authority. "The law on which right and wrong depend did not begin to be law when it was written; it is older than the ages of nations and cities, and contemporary with the very eternity of God."

SECTION 1.-ACCESSION OF ROBERT STUART.

The male descendants of the man Bruce having become extinct with the death of the second David, the crown was conferred on the maternal grandson of the great hero. The daughter of Bruce had married Walter, the lord high steward of Scotland, and the sixth of his family who had sustained that dignity. Hence the surname of Stuart.* This Walter, who fought bravely at the battle of Bannockburn, died at a comparatively early age; and his son Robert, who now ascended the Scottish throne, was fifty-five years old, and but imperfectly qualified to grasp the reins of government. A member of the Douglas family became a competitor for the crown, but renounced his pretensions on his son receiving Robert's daughter in marriage. On his coronation, to avoid all disputes about the succession, Robert's eldest son John, earl of Carrick, was declared to be heir-apparent; and failing him and his issue, the earl of Fife and Monteith; next to him, Alexander, lord of Badenoch; then the earl of Strathearne; and then Walter, earl of Athol. Though Robert swayed the sceptre for a period of nineteen years, the events of his reign come within a very narrow compass. He deemed it prudent strictly to observe the truce

*The origin of the family is involved in no common obscurity. It has been affirmed, without sufficient evidence, that they were descended from Fleance, the son of Banquo, who was murdered by Macbeth. Others have conjectured that the patronymic is derived from the noble English family of Fitz-alan, and have traced the family to Shropshire, in England, and as progenitors of the house of Arundel

VOL. I.

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with England, and on the French monarch engaging to support the Scots against the English, to renew the treaty with France. The feeble government of Edward 11. allowed the Scots a few years' respite from hostile proceedings; but no sooner had the second Richard ascended the English throne, than the two nations were again embroiled and torn asunder. Each invaded the territory of the other for the sake of plunder, spoil, and retaliation, and with alternate success. If the Scots, under Alexander Ramsey, had the temerity to assault and take the castle of Berwick by surprise, the English, under the earl of Northumberland, had spirit enough to invest the town and put the whole garrison to the sword. If the English marched into Scotland, and ravaged the country wherever they went, the Scots made their inroad into England and pillaged and burned the town of Penrith. If Lancaster advanced to the frontiers of Scotland with secret instructions to conclude a peace on the best possible terms, Robert, to provide against the event of an open rupture with England, sent an embassy to the coast of France, and obtained the promise of one thousand men-at-arms, each of whom should have four or five men under him, twelve hundred complete suits of armour, with a magnificent sum of money, to aid him in making war with the English. This great force was commanded by John de Vienne, high admiral of France, and one of the most renowned warriors of his age. The truce with England having expired, and Richard having collected an army of almost unparalleled force, he began to move towards the Scottish borders. The French general was eager to engage in war. The Scottish nobles were not prepared neither disposed to run so great a risk. Vienne was disappointed and mortified; but Douglas, taking him to a narrow pass where he might see and be able to judge of the strength of the English, put it to him as a soldier whether it would be the part of wisdom to encounter such a force with troops so undisciplined and so unequal. The admiral had no reply. The English entered Scotland on the eastern frontier, but, as they proceeded, were reduced to the greatest straits and distress for the want of provisions. The Scottish nobles no sooner learned the situation and circumstances of the enemy, than they forced their way into the western counties of England, and carried off abundant spoil. They did more damage in two days than the English could have done in Scotland "had they burned the whole country from border to border."

While the French withdrew, mortified and angry, it was not from want of courage, but from prudence, that the Scots refused to engage in an unequal contest. Of this, subsequent events are the best proof. With four or five thousand men Douglas penetrated the mountainous frontiers of England, where an assault was least expected; made a descent upon Northumberland and Durham; pillaged the country; kindled villages into flames; laid all waste as far as the gates of York, and loaded his army with richer spoil than

famous memory in English history, sent us Vero My lord Percy of this two sons-Henry, surnamed Hotspur, and his brother Ralph-to stop the progress of this invasion. They bravely threw themselves into Newcastle for its defence. Douglas and Hotspur came to a personal encounter, in which the former won the pennon of the latter, and vauntingly

exclaimed-This I shall carry into Scotland as a trophy of my prowess, and place it on the pinnacle of my castle, to be seen and known by all." To which Henry replied-"That thou shalt never do; I will regain my lance." Douglas then challenged him to seek and find it before his tent. Next day the Scots directed their march homewards, burdened with spoil. Having sent their booty forward, they attacked and destroyed a castle belonging to the enemy-resumed their march till they came to Otterburn, about eight miles distant from Newcastle, and twenty from the Scottish border. This was on August 19th, 1388. There they encamped. At midnight the alarm was given that the English were approaching. With nearly one thousand lancers, and more than eight thousand infantry, armed with long bows, Percy advanced towards the left flank of the Scottish army, when instantly the war-cry of "Percy! Percy!" rent the air. In a moment, and with the most consummate tact, Douglas drew up his forces, changed the position of his men, and presented such a front to the approaching English as they little expected. The battle commenced with unutterable fury. For some time the Scots had the worst of it; and, depressed and dispirited, were about to give way, when Douglas caused his banner to advance, attended by his best and truest men, and amid the inspiring shout of "Douglas! Douglas!" which now rose louder and more joyfully than ever from his embattled hosts, he himself rushed into the thickest of the fight. Once, twice, and a third time, was he wounded. The wounds were mortal. The dying hero lay prostrate on the cold earth, with his banner by his side; and, more taken up with the issue of the war than with himself, he exclaimed-"Raise again my banner! Shout Douglas! Avenge me, for I die!" Sinclair, the first Scottish knight who came up to the expiring chief, said to him-"How fares it, cousin?" ferently, said Douglas; but, blessed be God, my ancestors have died on fields of battle, not on beds of down. I sink fast; but let them still raise my war-cry, and conceal my death from my followers. There was a tradition in the family that a dead Douglas should win a field, and I trust it will this day be accomplished." His wish was fulfilled. His banner was raised; the field resounded with his name; every one rushed on to the battle; and the Scots, forming one combined phalanx, with levelled spears, routed the enemy. The defeat was complete. The Percys were both taken prisoners; the English sustained an incredible loss, and no man of note amongst them escaped death or captivity. Douglas lived but to hear that the Scots had won the day. His body was removed from the field, and was interred with great military pomp beneath the high altar in Melbrose Abbey.

"Douglas! a name through all the world renown'd

A name that rouses like the trumpet's sound!

Oft have your fathers, prodigal of life,

A Douglas followed through the bloody strife.
Hosts have been known at that dread name to yield,
And, Douglas dead, his name hath won the field!"

"Indif

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Douglas slain! Percy a captive! The field all wet with blood! What a spectacle !—what an issue! Can it be true that angels ever came down to this our world, and sang-" Peace on earth! good will

among men?" Christianity is the religion of love; but men have ever trampled its genius in the dust.

The king was now old, and deemed incapable of carrying on the government. A convention of the Estates appointed his second son, the earl of Fife, to the office of regent, by consenting to which, Robert virtually abdicated the throne. Nothing of any moment transpired during the subsequent years of his life. He died at his castle of Dundonald, on the 19th of April, 1390, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. He was a man of pacific disposition, and the chief aim of whose government was to maintain peace with England. He seldom appeared in the field in person, and yet in war, which he carried on by his generals, he was rarely unsuccessful. He administered justice with impartiality, and restored the kingdom to comparative rest and tranquillity.

SECTION II.-INTERNAL AND DOMESTIC POLICY.

JOHN STUART, the eldest son of the late king, ascended the throne on the 14th day of August, 1390. His name being deemed inauspicious, it was changed from John to ROBERT, as a name associated with the proudest recollections of the Scottish people. Though of a peaceful and religious disposition, he was destitute of mental vigour and of manly enterprise. "It was his great misfortune that, like others of his devoted line, his merits were not of a kind suited to the part he was called upon to perform in life. The king of so fierce a people as the Scots were ought to have been warlike, prompt, and <active, liberal in rewarding services, strict in punishing crimes-one -whose conduct should have made him feared as well as beloved. The qualities of Robert III. were the opposite of all these. In youth the had indeed seen battles; but without incurring disgrace, he had never manifested the chivalrous love of war and peril, or the eager desire to distinguish himself by dangerous achievements, which that age expected from all who were of noble birth, and had claims to authority. Amidst the tumult of a tournament, he in youth received a kick from a horse, in consequence of which he was lame for the rest of his life. As he had never testified much predilection for violent exertion, he did not probably much regret the incapacities which exempted him from these active scenes.'

HO His reign was anything but fortunate or happy. The inhabitants of the highlands made incursions into the lowlands, weakened and exhausted by frequent wars with England, and laid waste the country, bearing away the spoil as that of an avowed enemy. Hostilities followed, and the kingdom became divided against itself. No one could have foretold the fate of these lowlanders, had not the highlanders begun to quarrel among themselves. Clan was in arms

against clan, and such was the deadly feud that it filled the whole neighbourhood with carnage and blood. Quarrels were decided by an open combat, which was fought in the presence of the king and his nobles, and in which the best men of each confederacy were exposed to the most cruel and bloody death. Being deficient in