DOUGLAS, WILLIAM.—William
Douglas, knight of Liddesdale, otherwise well known in Scottish history by
the title of the Flower of Chivalry, has been reckoned, on the authority
of John de Fordun, to have been a natural son of Sir James Douglas, the
companion in arms of Robert Bruce, and as such he is generally mentioned
by our Scottish historians. Others, however, make him out to have been
lawful son of Sir James Douglas of Loudon. It is in vain to inquire into
the date of birth, or early life of the distinguished personages of this
period, as the first notice we generally receive of them is in some
historic action, when they had attained the age of manhood. Sir William
became possessor of the lands of Liddesdale, through marriage with
Margaret Graham, daughter of Sir John Graham, lord of Abercorn. His first
military exploit was the surprise and discomfiture of John Baliol at Annan,
after the battle of Dupplin. On this occasion, the knight of Liddesdale
marched under the banner of Andrew Murray, Earl of Bothwell; and so
successful was the small band of Scottish patriots, that the adherents of
the usurper were completely routed by a sudden night attack, Baliol
himself escaping with difficulty, and more than half-naked, upon an
unsaddled and unbridled horse, into England. In the following year (1333)
Sir William was not so fortunate. Having been appointed warden of the west
marches, in consequence of his able conduct in the surprise at Annan, his
district was soon invaded by the English, under Sir Anthony de Lucy; and
in a battle which ensued near Lochmaben, towards the end of March, Douglas
was taken prisoner, and carried to Edward III., by whose command he was
put in irons, and imprisoned for two years. During this interval the
battle of Halidon Hill occurred, in which the Scots were defeated with
great slaughter, and their country again subdued. But in 1335, the knight
of Liddesdale was set free, on payment of a heavy ransom; and on returning
to Scotland, he was one of the nobles who sat in the parliament held at
Dairsie, near Cupar-Fife, in the same year. He had not long been at
liberty when a full opportunity occurred of vindicating the liberties of
his country, and the rightful sovereignty of his young king, now a minor,
and living in France. Count Guy of Namur having crossed the sea to aid the
English, invaded Scotland with a considerable body of his foreign
men-at-arms, and advanced as far as Edinburgh, the castle of which was at
that time dismantled. A furious conflict commenced between these new
invaders and the Scots on the Borough-muir, in which the latter were on
the point of being worsted, when the knight of Liddesdale opportunely came
down from the Pentlands with a reinforcement, and defeated the enemy, who
retired for shelter to the ruins of the castle, where they slew their
horses, and made a rampart of their dead bodies. But hunger and thirst at
last compelled these brave foreigners to capitulate, and they were
generously allowed to return to England unmolested, on condition of
serving no longer in a Scottish invasion.
This successful skirmish
was followed by several others, in which the knight of Liddesdale took an
important share. He then passed over into Fife, and took in succession the
castles of St. Andrews, Falkland, and Leuchars, that held out for the
English. After this he returned to Lothian, and betook himself to his
favourite haunts of the Pentlands, thence to sally out against the English
as occasion offered. The chief object of his solicitude was Edinburgh
Castle, which he was eager to wrest from the enemy. On one of these
occasions, learning that the English soldiers in the town had become
confident and careless, he at night suddenly rushed down upon them from
his fastnesses, and slew 400 of their number while they were stupified
with sleep and drunkenness. It was to a warfare in detail of this
description that the Scots invariably betook themselves when the enemy
were in too great force to be encountered in a general action; and it was
by such skirmishes that they generally recovered their national freedom,
even when their cause seemed to be at the worst. After this, by a series
of daring enterprises, William Douglas recovered Teviotdale, Annandale,
Nithsdale, and Clydesdale from the English. These successes so raised his
reputation, that Henry, earl of Derby, who was appointed to the command of
the English troops in Scotland, was eager to try his valour in single
combat with the bold insurgent. They accordingly encountered on horseback
at Berwick, but at the first career, Douglas was so severely wounded in
the hand by accident with his own lance, that the combat had to be stayed.
Soon after, the knight of Liddesdale, in an encounter with Sir Thomas
Barclay, was worsted, with the loss of all his followers except three,
himself escaping with difficulty through the darkness of the night. But
this mischance he soon retrieved by a series of skirmishes, in which, with
greatly inferior numbers, he routed the English, and shook their
possession of Scotland. But his most remarkable exploit of this nature was
a desperate encounter, or rather series of encounters, which he had in the
course of one day with Sir Laurence Abernethy, a leader of the party of
Baliol. On this occasion Sir William Douglas was four times defeated; but
with unconquerable pertinacity he still returned to the charge, and in the
fifth was completely victorious. It was by these exploits, and especially
the last, that he worthily won the title of the "Flower of Chivalry."
After this he was sent by the High Steward, now governor of Scotland, to
France, to communicate the state of affairs to his young sovereign, David,
and obtain assistance from the French king. In this mission he was so
successful, that he soon returned with a squadron of five French ships of
war, that sailed up the Tay to aid the Steward, at this time employed in
the siege of Perth, which was held by the English. Sir William joined the
besiegers, but was wounded in the leg by a javelin discharged from a
springald, and unfitted for a time for further action. So opportune,
however, was his arrival with the reinforcement, that the Scots, who were
about to abandon the siege, resumed it with fresh vigour, and Perth was
soon after taken.
The cause of Baliol was now
at so low an ebb, and the country so cleared of the enemy, that little
remained in their possession except the castle of Edinburgh, from which
the knight of Liddesdale was eager to expel them. But the garrison were so
numerous, and the defences so strong, that an open siege was hopeless, and
he therefore had recourse to stratagem. He prevailed upon a merchant
sea-captain of Dundee, named Walter Curry, to bring his ship round to the
Forth, and pretend to be an Englishman pursued by the Scots, and desirous
of the protection of the castle, offering at the same time to supply the
garrison with provisions. The stratagem succeeded. The commander of the
castle bespoke a cargo of victuals on the following morning, and Douglas,
who was lurking in the neighbourhood, at the head of 200 followers, at
this intelligence disguised himself and twelve of his men with the gray
frocks of the mariners thrown over their armour, and joined the convoy of
Curry. The gates were opened, and the draw-bridge lowered to give entrance
to the waggons and their pretended drivers; but as soon as they came under
the gateway, they stabbed the warder, and blew a horn to summon the rest
of their party to the spot. Before these could arrive, the cry of treason
rang through the castle, and brought the governor and his soldiers upon
the daring assailants, who would soon have been overpowered, but for their
gallant defence in the narrow gateway, while they had taken the precaution
so to arrange the waggons that the portcullis could not be lowered. In the
meantime, the followers of Douglas rushed up the castle hill, and entered
the conflict, which they maintained with such vigour, that the whole
garrison were put to the sword, except Limosin, the governor, and six
squires, who escaped. After this important acquisition, the knight of
Liddesdale placed the castle under the command of Archibald Douglas, one
of his relatives.
Scotland was thus
completely freed from the enemy, and the people were impatient for the
return of their king from France, to which country he had been sent in
boyhood, during the ascendancy of the Baliol faction. Accordingly, David
II., now in his eighteenth year, landed at Innerbervie on the 4th of June,
1341, and was received with rapture by his subjects, who recognized in him
the pledge of their national freedom, as well as the son of their "good
king Robert." But this feeling was soon damped by the difficulties of the
young sovereign’s position, as well as the indiscretions of his
government. As for the knight of Liddesdale, he, like his compatriots, had
so long been accustomed to independent military command during the
interregnum, that he was unwilling to submit to royal authority when it
opposed his own personal interests; and of this he soon gave a fatal
proof, in the foul murder of Sir Alexander Ramsay of Palwolsie, as brave a
leader and a better man than himself, because the latter was appointed
keeper of Roxburgh Castle, and sheriff of Teviotdale, offices which
Douglas thought should have been conferred upon himself, as he had
recovered these places from the enemy with much toil and hazard. The
particulars of this revolting atrocity are too well known, both from
history and popular tradition, to require a further account. It is enough
to state that after such a deed—as cowardly as it was cruel, even
according to the principles of chivalry itself—the knight of Liddesdale
continued to be entitled, as well as esteemed, the "Flower of Chivalry;"
and that David II., so far from being able to punish the murderer, was
obliged to invest him with the office for the sake of which the crime had
been committed.
After this action, and
during the short interval of peace that continued between England and
Scotland, the character of Sir William Douglas, hitherto so distinguished
for patriotism, appears to have become very questionable. This has been
ascertained from the fact, that Edward III. was already tampering with him
to forsake the Scottish, and join the English interests, and for this
purpose had appointed Henry de Percy, Maurice de Berkeley, and Thomas de
Lacy "his commissioners," as their missive fully expressed it, "with full
powers to treat of, and conclude a treaty with William Douglas, to receive
him into our faith, peace, and amity, and to secure him in a reward." Such
a negotiation could scarcely have been thought of, unless Douglas, even
already had been exhibiting symptoms of most unpatriotic wavering. He held
several meetings, not only with these commissioners, but also with Baliol
himself, and appears to have fully accorded to their proposals, and agreed
to accept the wages of the English king. But whether the promised
advantages were too uncertain, or the risk of such a change of principle
too great, the treaty was abruptly broken off; and Douglas, as if to quell
all suspicion, made a furious inroad, at the head of a large force, across
the English border, although the truce between the two countries still
continued; burnt Carlisle and Penrith; and after a skirmish with the
English, in which the bishop of Carlisle was unhorsed, he retreated
hastily into Scotland. By this act the truce was at an end, and David II.,
believing the opportunity to be favourable for a great English
invasion, as Edward III. with the flower of his army was now in France,
assembled a numerous army, with which he advanced to the English border,
and took the castle of Liddel after a six days’ siege. It was now that the
knight of Liddesdale counselled a retreat. His experience had taught him
the strength of the English northern counties, and the warlike character
of their barons, and perhaps he had seen enough of the military character
of David to question his fitness for such a difficult enterprise. But his
advice was received both by king and nobles with indignation and scorn.
"Must we only fight for your gain!" they fiercely replied; "you
have filled your own coffers with English gold, and secured your own lands
by our valour, and now you would restrain us from our share in the
plunder?" They added, that England was now emptied of its best defenders,
so that nothing stood between them and a march even to London itself, but
cowardly priests and base hinds and mechanics. Thus, even already, the
moral influence of William Douglas was gone, the patriotic character of
his past achievements went for nothing, and he was obliged to follow in a
career where he had no leading voice, and for which he could anticipate
nothing but defeat and disaster.
The Scottish army continued
its inroad of merciless desolation and plunder until it came near Durham,
when it encamped at a place which Fordun calls Beau-repair, but is now
well known by the name of Bear Park. It was as ill-chosen as any locality
could have been for such a purpose; for the Scottish troops, that depended
so much upon unity of action for success, were divided into irregular
unconnected masses by the hedges and ditches with which the ground was
intersected, so that they resembled sheep inclosed within hurdles, ready
for selection and slaughter; while the ground surrounding their encampment
was so undulating that an enemy could approach them before they were
aware. And that enemy, without their knowing it, was now within six miles
of their encampment. The English barons had bestirred themselves so
effectually that they were at the head of a numerous force, and ready to
meet the invaders on equal terms. On the morning of the day on which the
battle occurred, the knight of Liddesdale, still fearing the worst, rode
out at the head of a strong body of cavalry, to ascertain the whereabouts
of the English, and procure forage and provisions; but he had not rode far
when he unexpectedly found himself in front of their whole army. He was
instantly assailed by overwhelming multitudes, and, after a fierce
resistance, compelled to flee, after losing 500 men-at-arms; while the
first intelligence which the Scots received of the enemy’s approach was
from the return of Douglas on the spur, with the few survivors, who leaped
the inclosures, and their pursuers, who drew bridle, and waited the coming
of their main body. Into the particulars of the fatal conflict that
followed, commonly called the battle of Durham, which was fought on the
17th of October, 1346, it is not our purpose at present to enter: it was
to the Scots a mournful but fitting conclusion to an attempt rashly
undertaken, and wise counsels scornfully rejected. Fifteen thousand of
their soldiers fell; their king, and the chief of their knights and
nobles, were taken prisoners; and among the latter was Sir William
Douglas, who, along with the Earl of Moray, had commanded the right wing.
He was again to become the inmate of an English prison! The capture of
such an enemy, also, was reckoned so important, that Robert de Bertram,
the soldier who took him prisoner, obtained a pension of 200 merks to him
and his heirs, until the king, now absent in France, should provide him in
lands of equal value.
The history of a prisoner
is commonly a blank; but to this the captivity of Douglas forms an
exception. He was still able to nurse his feuds and wreak his resentments,
and of this Sir David Berkeley soon had fatal experience. This man, who
had assassinated Sir John Douglas, brother of the knight of Liddesdale,
was himself assassinated by Sir John St. Michael, purchased, as was
alleged, to commit this deed by Sir William himself. This occurred in
1350, after the latter had been in prison nearly four years. In the
meantime, Edward III. being in want of money for the prosecution of his
French wars, endeavoured to recruit his empty coffers by the ransom of the
prisoners taken at the battle of Durham, so that many of the Scottish
nobles were enabled to return to their homes; but from this favour the
knight of Liddesdale was excepted. The king of England knew his high
military renown and influence in Scotland; and it is probable that upon
these qualities, combined with the knight’s unscrupulous moral character,
he depended greatly for the furtherance of a scheme which he had now at
heart. This was the possession of Scotland, not, however, by conquest,
which had been already tried in vain, or through the vice-royalty of
Baliol, who was now thrown aside as a worthless instrument, but through
the voluntary consent and cession of king David himself. David was a
childless man; he was weary of his captivity, and ready to purchase
liberty on any terms; and the High Steward of Scotland, who had been
appointed his successor by the Scottish Parliament, failing heirs of his
own body, had shown little anxiety for the liberation of his captive
sovereign. On these several accounts David was easily induced to enter
into the purposes of the English king. The knight of Liddesdale was also
persuaded to purchase his liberty upon similar terms; and thus Scotland
had for its betrayers its own king and the bravest of its champions. The
conditions into which Douglas entered with Edward III, in this singular
treaty were the following:—He bound himself and his heirs to serve the
king of England in all wars whatever, except against his own nation; with
the proviso annexed, that he might renounce, if he pleased, the benefit of
this exception: That he should furnish ten men-at-arms and ten light
horsemen, for three months, at his own charges: That, should the French or
other foreigners join the Scots, or the Scots join the French or other
foreigners in invading England, he should do his utmost to annoy all the
invaders "except the Scots:" That he should not openly, or in secret, give
counsel or aid against the king of England or his heirs, in behalf of his
own nation or of any others: That the English should do no hurt to his
lands or his people; and his people do no hurt to the English, except in
self-defence: That he should permit the English at all times to pass
through his lands without molestation: That he should renounce all claim
to the castle of Liddel: and that should the English, or the men of the
estates of the knight of Liddesdale, injure each other, by firing houses
or stack-yards, plundering, or committing any such offences, the treaty
should not thereby be annulled; but that the parties now contracting
should forthwith cause the damage to be mutually liquidated and repaired.
To these strange terms Douglas was to subscribe by oath for their exact
fulfilment, on pain of being held a disloyal and perjured man and a false
liar (what else did such a treaty make him?); and that he should give his
daughter and his nearest male heir as hostages, to remain in the custody
of the king of England for two years. In return for all this he was to be
released from captivity, and to have a grant of the territory of
Liddesdale, Hermitage Castle, and certain lands in the interior of
Annandale.
Sir William, having
obtained his liberty at such a shameful price, returned to Scotland, and
attempted to put his treasonable designs in execution. But during his
absence another William Douglas had taken his place in influence and
estimation. This was the nephew of the good Sir James, also his own
god-son, who, having been bred to arms in the wars in France, had returned
to Scotland, and assumed his place as the head of the Douglases, a
position which his valour was well fitted to maintain, for he quickly
drove the English from Douglasdale, Ettrick Forest, and Teviotdale. To him
the knight of Liddesdale applied, in the hope of winning him over to the
cause of Edward; but this nobleman not only rejected the base proposal,
but, being made thus aware of the treachery on foot, assembled his
vassals, broke into Galloway, and compelled the barons of that wild
district to renounce the cause of England, and return to their rightful
allegiance. Soon after, Annandale, which the treacherous knight had
designed to make the head-quarters of his perfidious movements, was
overrun and occupied by the High Steward and his son. Thus Sir William was
foiled at every point, and that chiefly through the agency of his own
god-son, whom be therefore hated with a deadly hatred. These failures were
soon closed by a deadly termination. One day, while the knight of
Liddesdale was hunting in the depths of Ettrick Forest, he was set upon
and slain at a place called Galford, by a band of armed men employed for
that purpose by Lord William himself. The causes of such a deed—which in
the estimation of the church was nothing less than spiritual parricide, on
account of the religious relationship of the parties—can scarcely be found
in the contending interests of the rivals, and the mutual injuries that
had passed between them; and therefore it was alleged that the "Flower of
Chivalry," whose morals were those of too many knights of the period, had
seduced the affections of Lord William’s wife, and was thus requited for
his crime. Such was the report of the time, and Fordun has quoted the
following verse from an ancient ballad upon the subject:--
"The Countess of Douglas out of her
bower she came,
And loudly there did she call,
‘It is for the lord of Liddesdale
That I let the tears down fall.’"
The body, on being found,
was carried to Linden Kirk, a chapel in Ettrick Forest, and afterwards
interred in Melrose Abbey. But by his murder of Ramsay, as well as his
subsequent treason, Sir William Douglas had obliterated the recollection
of his great and gallant deeds, so that he died unregretted, and was soon
forgot. |