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THE
directors of the Highland Railway, solicitous for the welfare of their
passengers, show at one of the best known, and not least important of
their stations, a special thoughtfulness, which is, perhaps, not so much
appreciated as it deserves to be by the tourist rushing to find health
and golf at Nairn, or the sportsman bent upon demonstrating the temper
of English stoicism by facing the discomforts of a soakiug Twelfth of
August upon a Scottish moor. The traveller who has been surfeited with
the leafy riches of Perthshire scenery, has rushed through the Pass of
Killiecrankie with the fervour of Macaulay's prose, if not with the
roaring fury of the Highland clans, and has panted up the ascent to
Dalnaspidal, relieved as it is from absolute dreariness by the brawling
Garry, is glad to rest for a few minutes at Kingussie Station, stretch
his legs on the platform, and drink the cup of tea which is offered for
his acceptance. During the brief respite from the occasionally too
severe task of realising the grandeur of the Grampians which is here
offered him, his eye cannot fail to note a grey pile of ruins,
surmounting a conical green mound, about three-quarters of a mile
distant on the south side of the Spey, which has now superseded the
Garry in the landscape as the Garry superseded the Tay. If he has time
to make enquiries, or to consult a guide-book, he ascertains that these
ruins are popularly known as Ruthven Castle, but that they are in
reality all that is left of the barracks erected by the British
Government about the middle of the seventeenth century to aid in keeping
the always turbulent Highlands in order. But if he is wise enough to
halt for a few days at Kingussie, and make it his head-quarters while he
is engaged in exploring the beauties of Speyside, he will learn a great
deal more about the history of Ruthven Castle. No fortress in Scotland
has suffered more the brunt of war; none has been so often destroyed and
so often rebuilt. "Standing at a crossing point of tracks north, south,
east, and west, in the great valley of the Spey, it saw and felt every
raid westward by the Gordons, Grants, Mackintoshes; eastwards by
Macdonalds, Camerons, Macleans, and Campbells; southwards by them all,
with Macphersons, Mackenzies, and many more; and northward by the
regular forces of the kingdom." Huntly, when fighting "the bonnie Earl
of Moray," repaired it. Argyll besieged it when it was held by
Macphersons. Montrose, Monk, Lilburn, and Mackay in turn garrisoned it.
Dundee burned it. It was in front of Ruthven that the remains of the
defeated army of Prince Charles—a force of several thousands strong
which, well led, might have accomplished much—rallied after the disaster
of Culloden, and it was there that most of them received, with rage and
grief, the somewhat cold-blooded
sauve qui pent transmitted to them by an
aide-de-camp.
Yet
the more one studies Ruthven Castle and that Highland region which it
appears even yet to guard with dignity, but with a mournful
ineffectually, against invasion from the South, the more one historic
figure seems to overshadow all the others that have for six centuries
been associated with it. This is the extraordinary man, Alexander
Stewart, Earl of Badenoch, Buchan, and Ross—the strong son of a weak
father, the strong father of a still stronger son—who, about the close
of the fourteenth century, was granted Ruthven Castle by the Crown as he
was granted the other inheritances and strongholds of the Red Cornyn.
Everybody is familiar with his portrait as it is given in the story
which Sir Thomas Dick Lauder has named after him. Nearly seven feet in
height, of herculean strength, impatient of parental control, the slave
of fierce passions and miserable superstitions—his atrocities, his
almost regal hospitalities, his empty terrors, and finally his abject
humiliation, give a certain fascination to one of the dullest even of
historical romances. Yet it is this Wolfe of Badenoch that lives to the
present day.
'The
name by which he is best known in history—the Wolfe of Badenoch
—describes him to the life. Cruel, vindictive, and despotic—a Celtic
Attila as he has been called—he resembles one of those half-human,
half-bestial barons depicted in Erckmann-Chatran's romances, who were
the terror of France and Germany daring the middle ages.'
So he
is designated by the latest historian of the Badenoch region, Sheriff
Rampini, in the excellent
History of Moray and Nairn which he has
contributed to Messrs. Blackwood's series of County Histories. Mr.
Rampini then proceeds to condense the best part of Dick Lauder's romance
into this account of the historic outrage which, in 1390, gained for the
Wolfe everlasting infamy. The story could not have been better or more
succinctly told :—
'By
his wife (Euphemia, Countess of Ross, and, when Alexander Stewart
married her, widow of Walter de Leslie) he had no children, and he had
accordingly left her to live with another woman—a certain Mariot,
daughter of Athyn—who had already borne him several sons. The outraged
Countess applied to the bishops of Moray and Ross for redress, and in
1389 they, as consistorial judges, pronounced, at Inverness, degree of
adherence in her favour against her husband, ordering him at the same
time to find security for his future good behaviour towards her in the
sum of £200. This was more than the Wolfe could brook, and he determined
upon revenge. He seized upon some lands belonging to the Bishop of Moray
in Badenoch. The Bishop promptly excommunicated him. All the savagery in
his nature was now roused. Sending out the fiery cross he gathered his
fierce caterans together—'Wyld, wykkyd Hielandmen,' Wyntoun calls
them—and swooping down from his stronghold of Lochindorb, he burned the
town of Forres, the choir of the church of St. Lawrence there, and the
manse of the archdeacon in the neighbourhood of the town. Intoxicated
with success, he resolved upon still further reprisals. Tramping over
twelve miles of heather and holt which in those days separated the towns
of Forres and Elgin, he arrived in the cathedral city one morning early
in June, 1390. It was the day of the feast of the Blessed Abbot Botolph.
The honest burgesses were awakened from their peaceful slumbers by the
noise of crackling timbers and blinding clouds of smoke. The whole town
was in flames. Meanwhile the ruthless incendiaries were at work on the
public buildings. The parish church of St. Giles was blazing, the
hospital Maison Dieu was in a similar condition; so were the eighteen
noble and beautiful manses of the canons situated within the precinct
walls; "and, what is most grievously to be lamented, the noble and
highly adorned church of Moray, the delight of the country and ornament
of the kingdom, with all the books, charters, and goods of the country
placed therein."
But
although Sheriff Rampini accepts the 'Celtic Attila' theory of the
Wolfe—does not the 'Boar of Ardennes' in
Quentin Durward,
come nearer the reality than the 'Celtic Attila? '—he does not swallow
tradition and Sir Thomas Dick Lauder's reading of it absolutely. He
declines to believe in the finnl triumph of the Church and the abasement
of its savage enemy.
'The
popular tradition that before his death, which occurred on the 20th
February, 1394, he repented of his crimes, and actually did penance for
his sacrilege, rests on no higher authority than that of the clerical
scribe who wrote the "Qutedam Memorabilia"—an unauthoritative chronicle
of events in Scottish and English history between the years 1390 and
1402—appended to the Chartulary of Moray. Xone of the old historians
mention it. Fordnn says nothing about it; neither does Wyntoun ; neither
does the "Liber Pluscardensis." It is hardly likely that an event which
would have so eminently vindicated the authority of Mother Church should
have been omitted by such devoted Churchmen. Until further confirmation
is obtained we must set down the story as one of those pious fibs which
unfortunately are not uncommon in the writings of ecclesiastical
chroniclers, whose zeal for the honour of their subjects was often in
inverse proportion to their own veracity.'
But
the visitor to Strathspey who can afford to spend a few days revelling
in its scenery finds more traces of the Wolfe of Badenoch than the ruins
of Ruthven Castle and the possibilities suggested by its commanding
site. If he accepts the wisdom which is certain to be offered him by a
multitude of counsellors, he will make his way by driving from Kingussie,
or by walking from Aviemore, to the most beautiful of all the minor
Highland lochs, Loch-an-eilan, on the borders of the Rothiemurchus
forest—a sheet of water some two or three miles in circumferance, and
literally embosomed amid woods and hills, from the highest of which, the
great white Ord Ban, clad with birches almost to its summit, a view can
be had of eight lochs, and, in fine weather, a glimpse can be had even
of Ben Nevis. But the word Loch-an-eilan means 'Lake of the Island,' and
on this island, which is but a short distance from the shore, stand the
ruined walls of what must have been a tolerably strong fortress. On
enquiry he will find that this castle was built by the same Wolfe of
Badenoch who occupied Ruthven Castle, and sacked Forres and Elgin.
But
the Wolfe of Badenoch is identified in romance if not in sober history
even less with Ruthven or with Loch-an-eilan, than with Loch-in-dorb,
that 'lake of black water' which is some ten miles from Grantown and
three from Dava, the nearest station to it on the Highland line. For it
was from Loch-in-dorb that in 1393 Alexander Stewart descended on the
Laigh of Murray and burnt Forres and Elgin. Tradition indeed, associates
Loch-in-dorb with ' fair women and brave men,' who lived long before the
Wolfe and the fascinating ' Mariota filia Athyn ' for whom he forsook
his Countess and defied the terrors of the Church. Was it not in
Loch-in-dorb that in 1336 Sir Andrew Moray, Regent of Scotland in
succession to the Douglas who was killed at Halidon Hill, besieged
Catherine de Beaumont, widow of David de Hastings, Earl of Atholl, and '
a' the ladyis that were lovely,' because she and they were partisans of
England? The castle of Loch-in-dorb fell into the hands of the Comyns
and was, of course, transferred with the rest of their lands to
Alexander Stewart when he became lord of Badenoch. It must have been a
place of considerable size and great strength, for the ramparts which
rise round the whole edge of the island to the height of nearly thirty
feet enclose five courts, one of which seems to have been used as a
kitchen garden, and doubtless supplied materials for those barbaric
feasts which found a place if not in history, at least in the story of
Sir Thomas Dick Lauder.
Alexander Stewart therefore, had at least three fortresses in his
possession of commanding strength in themselves and also of eupreme
strategical value—Ruthven, Loch-an-eilan, and Loch-in-dorb. Even the
novice in military matters can see that the man who occupied them, must
have had a keen eye to the possibilities of political power involved in
the planting of fortresses in the proper places. With such power as he
had placed in his hand?, he might, it is evident, have been something
more than merely Lord of Badenoch and King's Seneschal in the region
between the Perthshire Highlands and the Moray Firth. He might have been
to all intents and purposes au independent monarch. And the question is
was he not? The object of those of the following pages which are devoted
to him as distinguished from that still more brilliant adventurer and
leader of caterans, his son, is to show with the help of such historical
authorities as appear to be now available that at least be may have
been.
Who
was Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan and Wolfe of Badenoch? Robert II.,
the only child of Walter the High Steward of Scotland by Marjory Bruce,
who was born in 1316 and ascended the throne of Scotland in February,
1370, and whose character and personal appearance have been admirably
hit off by Froissart with a stroke of genuinely French realism as ' a
man not valiant with red blear eyes who would rather be still than
ride,' would seem when not more than twenty years of age to have formed
an irregular connection with Elizabeth, daughter of Adam Mure or More of
Rowallan, the result of which was a large family. Elizabeth had entered
into a marriage
per verba de presenti with Hugh de Clifford
when she was eleven years of age, and Clifford nine. But the marriage
had never been ratified ; and on 12th October, 1344, in anticipation of'
her intended marriage to the Steward, that bond was dissolved by papal
authority. Another papal dispensation, dated 22nd Nov., 1347, removed
two further impediments to this marriage, which arose from Robert '
being related to Elizabeth in the fourth degree of consanguinity, and
having had intercourse with a lady related to her in the third and
fourth degrees.' They were undoubtedly married in 1349, but although
there was a dispensation legitimating the
multitudo probis
utriusque sexus
which had previously been born, it remained a point admitting of doubt
among canonists whether such" a provision in the absence of any
assertion either of a previous marriage, or of ignorance of the
impediments, conferred the full status. By 1355 Elizabeth Mure must have
been dead, for in that year Robert obtained a dispensation which enabled
him to many Euphemia, daughter of the Earl of Ross and widow of the Earl
of Moray. Of the legitimacy of the family which was the result of this
union there was never any question whatever, and any legal doubts as to
the capacity of the first family to succeed to the throne were obviated
by two settlements of the crown made soon after the accession of Robert
If. Alexander Stewart was the fourth son of Robert, by Elizabeth Mure,
and if he was illegimate, so must have been his eldest brother, John,
who succeeded his father under the designation of Robert the Third. It
would appear that Alexander was always a favourite with his father.
Robert was certainly not long in giving practical evidence of his
partiality for his possibly rebellious, but unquestionably capable son.
There seems to be some doubt as to whether it was on the 22nd February,
1370, or the 22nd February, 1371, that King David died. If the latter is
the correct date, only a few weeks passed before the king showed that it
was his fourth son that he delighted to honour. It is on record that
charters of the lands of Badenoch, with the fortress of Loch-in-dorb,
were granted to Alexander Stewart on 30th March, 1371. In June of the
same year he had a grant made to him of the lands of Strathaven. In
October of the following year he was made Justiciary of Scotland north
of the Forth, and king's seneschal or lieutenant from the border of
Moray northwards. Alexander's career of honour and prosperity
unquestionably lasted nearly twelve years. Between 1376 and 1379 fresh
charters of land were granted to him in Banffshire, Sutherlandshire,
Invernessshire, and Aberdeenshire. In tor shortly before 1362 he married
Euphemia, Obmnteae of Ross, daughter of William, Earl of Ross, and widow
of Sir Walter Lesley. She and her predecessors had come to possess one
half of the lands of the earldom of Buchan, in consequence of the
marriage of the brother of a former Earl with the younger daughter of
Earl John Comyn; and, on her marriage she resigned these lands
(designated the barony of Kynedward) to the King, who, on 22nd July,
1382, re-granted them to her and her husband, Sir Alexander Stewart,
who, from that date forward is called Earl of Buchan. Three days later,
as is proved by an examination of the public records, grants were made
to him of properties in almost every district of Scotland, including the
islands of Skye and Lewis. Alexander Stewart was now at the height of
his prosperity ; at this time indeed, he was probably the most powerful
subject of the Scottish Crown with the possible exception of the head of
the house of Douglas. His marriage does not appear, however, to have
brought him happiness. At all events, his next appearance in Scottish
history, and that which is better known than any other, is unfortunately
due in a sense to that unhappiness. "Whether it was because his wife
proved childless or not, it is beyond question that he deserted her for
another woman of whom all we know is that she is designated as 'Mariota
filia Athyn.' It may be considered certain, however, that his connection
with Mariota dated a considerable time before his marriage with the
Countess of Ross. By her he had five sons _Alexander, who, as will be
seen, played an even more distinguished and erratic part in the history
of Scotland than his father, Andrew, Walter, .James, and Duncan. In 1389
some of these must have been grown up, though whether they were quite so
old as they are represented in Sir Thomas Dick Lauder's story may
perhaps be doubted. In that year, lawlessness and disorder, more
especially in the border country or debateable land between Highlands
and Lowlands, would seem to have given trouble to the Scottish Estates,
for they issued an Order in Council at a meeting which was held at Perth
in January of that year that ' the sons of Sir Alexander Stewart who
were prisoners at Stirling should be kept at security and not liberated
without the authority of the Estates.'
It
would not have been unnatural if Alexander Stewart's sons had sided with
their father and mother in the great quarrel in which they were involved
with Alexander Bur, or Barr, who was bishop of Moray between 1362 and
1397. The popular view of the origin of this quarrel has already been
given in the language of Sheriff Rampini. The offended and deserted
countess appeals for redress to the Bishop of Moray. He and his brother
of Ross hold a consistorial court, at which the lord of Badenoch is '
ordained to live with the countess whom he had deserted for Mariota,
filia Athyn, and he becomes bound not to maltreat his wife under a
penalty of £200.' Getting into a savage passion, the extravagances of
which are duly detailed by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, the Wolfe retaliates
by seizing some lands belonging to the Bishop. This is followed by
excommunication, and that in turn by the burning of Forres and Elgin in
the early summer of 1390. It is not improbable, however, that Alexander
Barr and Alexander Stewart were bitterly opposed to each other from the
very moment the latter was appointed by his father his lieutenant and
Justiciary north of the Forth. The Bishop of Moray, thanks to the
activity of his predecessors, and particularly of the patriotic and also
eminently astute Andrea de Moravia, was a great secular as well as
spiritual potentate, and a landed proprietor in no fewer than five
counties—Aberdeen, Banff, Elgin, Nairn, and Inverness. His diocese,
according to Cosmo Innes, 'seems to have extended along the coast from
the river Forn, its boundary with Ross to the Spey. Bounded by Loch Aber
on the south, it included the country surrounding Loch Ness, the valleys
of the Nairn and Findhorn, Badenoch and Strathspey, the valleys of the
Avon and Fiddich, and all the upper part of Banffshire, comprehending
Strathyla and Strathbog in Aberdeenshire.'
It is
highly probable that Bishop Bar found himself in opposition to Alexander
Stewart from the very commencement of the latter's occupation of the
lands of Badenoch. Possibly he apprehended trouble in connection with
his spiritual and ecclesiastical authority from a man who had no doubt a
reputation as an audaciously free liver. But it seems certain that the
two Alexanders came first into serious collision over a question of
property or at least of ' superiority' in land. In the first year of his
father's reign he is mentioned (Exchequer
Rolls, vol. ii.) as ' intromiting with the
rents of the Earldom of Moray.' He is further represented as in 1373
entering into possession of the ' abthanice ' of Dull, and in 1376
refusing to pay customs at Inverness. Finally in 1380 the two potentates
appear in open quarrel. ' In 1380,' says the
Registrnm Moraviense, ' Alexander Stewart,
Lord of Badenoch, in the most formal manner, cites the holders of
certain lands of Badenoch to appear and produce their titles at the
Standard Stanys of the Rathe of Kyngucy. Amongst others, the Bishop of
Moray appeared upon this citation, not however to prove his titles to
his lands of Badenoch, but to protest against the jurisdiction and the
whole proceedings of the Earl, whom he refused to acknowledge as his
overlord.' Here, therefore, we have the origin of the quarrel between
the two Alexanders—obviously both obstinate and self-willed men—in a
dispute as to over-lordship. Essentially, therefore, it was of the
commonplace kind of which a great deal was heard from about this date
forward in Scottish history till the Reformation, one of the secondary
results of which was, as is perhaps too notorious, the seizure of the
best aud bulk of the Church lands by the nobles. It is extremely
probable, however, that the Bishop of Moray now set himself deliberately
to destroy the authority of the man whose life he condemned and whose
overlordship he flouted. Probably Sir Thomas Dick Lauder is essentially
in the right in representing the old king as ultimately turning against
his son. Two blows were struck against Alexander in 1389 by the Church
and by Parliament. As has been already seen, the Bishop of Moray, who
had secured the co-operation of the Bishop of Ross, pronounced in favour
of the Earl of Buchan's wife as against his mistress. In December of the
same year, ' Sir Alexander Stewart of Badenoch was deprived of the
office of Justiciary north of the Firth; and the mention in the
Parliamentary record of his frequent and repeated neglect of duty as the
ground of his deposition, is suggestive of bis having held that office
for some time.'
But
Alexander Stewart was not a man to allow himself to be crushed by his
enemies without letting them see the stern stuff he was made of. The
common story is that his first move was the seizure of certain lands in
the bishopric of Moray. It has already been seen that in 1380 the bishop
and the earl had had a dispute over the property and overlordship of
certain lands. In the
Registrum Moraviense for 1381 and 1383 we
have these two remarkable statements, which would seem to indicate that
the bishop had seen it advisable, in spite of his defiance of 1380, to
recognise certain of the Earl's claims as just: ' Alexander Dominus de
Badenoch quietas clamat terras Episcopi de Logan-Kenny, Ardynche, et
terras capella-rum de Roth et Demachtan. . . Episcopus ad formam
concedit Alexandro Domino de Badenoch et duobus heredibus terram de
Ratmorchus.' It is at least possible, therefore, that the seizing of the
bishop's lands which, according to tradition, was followed by
excommunication, had nothing to do with the episcopal interference in
Stewart's domestic concerns. But one can readily believe that the earl
was boiling over with indignation against the persistent antagonist who
had questioned his overlordship, had interfered in his private affairs,
and had discredited him in the eyes of his father and of the Scots
Parliament. He only waited for a fitting opportunity to strike—and to
strike hard, effectually, and once for all. The opportunity soon came.
Robert the Second died at his castle of Dundonald, in Ayrshire, on the
19th April, 1390. He was succeeded by his son, Robert the Third,
originally John, one of the most unfortunate and quite the weakest of
the Stewarts. There was confusion in Scotland—the confusion inseparable
from the commencement of a new reign—and Alexander probably knew what a
weakling the new king was. He did not wait for the coronation, but in
June hurled his caterans from Loch-in-dorb on his enemy.
The
burning of Forres and Elgin was doubtless an act of barbarity, but it
was a masterpiece in its way. The march upon the doomed towns was
brilliantly conceived and skilfully carried out. Both bishop and
burgesses were completely taken by surprise. Nor is there the slightest
evidence of a trustworthy nature that any punishment was inflicted upon
the victorious Wolfe. There is, of course, the story that 4
Lord Alexander Stewart, by special commission from Lord Alexander Barr,
Bishop, was absolved by Lord Walter Trail, Bishop of St.. Andrews, in
presence of the Lord the King, the Earl of Fife, Lord William de Keith,
Malcolm de Drummoud Lord of Marre, and Lord Thomas de Erskyn, and many
others at Perth, before the doors of the church of the Predicate
Brothers, and thereafter before the high altar, from the sentence of
excommunication on condition that he made satisfaction to the church of
Moray, and that he send to the Pope for absolution from the former
sentence of excommunication made against him.' But, as has already been
seen, historical scepticism, perhaps too rudely, declines to see in this
story of the repentance at Perth anything more than ' One of those pious
fibs which, unfortunately, are not uncommon in the writings of
ecclesiastical chroniclers.' Had the Wolfe's ' satisfaction ' taken a
tangible form, it is incredible that there should not have been some
record of it.
According to tradition Alexander Stewart predeceased his opponent by
three years, and died on 30th February, 1394. It is a remarkable, if not
a suspicious circumstance, that if this tradition can be relied upon, he
must, in spite of the record of his life, have died iu the very richest
odour of sauctity. The common belief is that he was buried in Dunkeld
Cathedral. There, indeed, are still shown the grave of the 'Dominus de
Badenoch ' and a monument to him, consisting of his effigy recumbent iu
armour and as large as life, supported by a row of ornamental figures.
This monument is somewhat defaced, and we are generally told that this
mutilation was the work of a party of Caineronians stationed at Duukeld
in 1688. Why the Cameronians should have directed their wrath against
the tomb of a man who did as much harm to a Roman Catholic cathedral as
could have been accomplished by any Protestant mob of the Reformation
period is not quite clear. On this account, and perhaps for other
reasons as well, historical scepticism has lately attacked the belief
that the Dominus de Badenoch, whose effigy is to be seen in Duukeld
Cathedral, is the redoubtable Alexander Stewart. In a paper on 'The
Monumental Effigies of Scotland,' which appears in the proceedings of
the Antiquariau Society of May 13, 1895, Mr. Robert Brydall expresses
the opinion that ' the tomb is that of another Dominus de Badenoch, who
died on 20th July, year illegible, and that the armour is that of the
fifteenth century.' But if Stewart died in 1394, how comes it that in
the Registrum
Moraviense we find this injunction under the
year 1398, Rex
mandat comiti Buchanie lit castrum de Spyny Episcopo reddat.
This is clearly no mistake for 1389, for the king
addresses the the Earl of Buchan as
Dilectus frater.
What
a field for conjecture, but unhappily for conjecture only, is opened up
by this record in the
Registrum Moraviense. It would seem certain,
however, that the Wolfe had not confined his war of aggression—or of
self-defence—against the bishopric of Moray to the lifetime of Alexander
Barr. Scarcely . had the new bishop, known as William of Spynie, entered
upon office than he was attacked, and apparently with success, in his
stronghold. That Alexander Stewart should have struck at Bishop William
in his own stronghold of Spynie is another proof that he was one ot the
greatest masters of foray warfare that Scotland has ever produced.
It
seems impossible, therefore, to settle when Alexander Stewart died. Too
much emphasis should not perhaps be placed on a curious story, which,
however, receives some countenance from one of the indexes to the fifth
volume of the Exchequer Rolls, and which represents ' Sir A. Stuart
comes Buchanie' obtaining his discharge for £7 8s. 11d. as his
contribution to the common good at Perth on 7th July, 1404. It may be
assumed, however, that he was dead by the 20th September, 1406, for in a
charter granted to his then all-powerful brother, the Duke of Albany, we
find that ambitious and selfish prince designated 'Dux Albanie et comes
de Monteith et Buchan.' As Alexander Stewart died without lawful issue,
his lands reverted to the Crown. Doubtless they were granted to Albany
by the feeble king. They reverted once more to .the Crown, and finally
Badenoch was granted to the Earl of Huntly in 1452.
Alexander Stewart had five sons by Mariota 'filia Athyu,' Alexander,
Andrew, Walter, James, and Duncan. They seem from various vagueallnsions
in historical records to certain ' lawless disturbances' in which they
figured, and which led to their being imprisoned and 'bound over to keep
the peace' more than once, to have heartily espoused the side of their
father in his numerous quarrels. The eldtst, Alexander, was destined to
have a more brilliant career as a political and military free lance than
even the Wolfe, although it was never his fate to govern a practically
independent kingdom as it is now manifest his father did. But as the
commander who, on the bloody field of Harlaw in 1415, stayed the
victorious and ravaging progress of Donald, Lord of the Isles, and his
Highland host, he has been declared by Burton and other historians to
have done more for the civilisation of Scotland than even the victor of
Bannockburn. It is to be regretted that even painstaking Scottish
writers should have confounded the two great caterans. Tims, in one of
the most trustworthy, accurate, and deservedly popular of modern
encyclopaedias, I read that ' the male line of the Celtic Earls of Mar
expired in 1377 with Thomas, thirteenth earl, whose sister Margaret
married William, first Earl of Douglas. Their daughter, Isabella, in
1401, married Alexander Stewart, the "Wolfe of Badenrch" who, after her
death in 1419, was designated Earl of Mar.' In this inaccurate fashion
we have allusion made to the marriage of the second Alexander Stewart—an
event which, extraordinary and melodramatic though it was, is but an
incident in a life fuller of romance and vicissitude than that of any
Scotsman, with the possible exception of Montrose.
The
good Fordun has thus summed up the career and the extraordinary moral
transformation of the Earl of Mar: 'In juveutute erat multum indomitus
et ductor catervanorum, in virum alteram mutatus placenter trans montes
quasi aquilonem gubernabat.' The first important appearance of the
second Alexander Stewart as a
ductor catervanorum has been recorded by
Burton in his
Scot Abroad and his
History of Scotland. What he says in the
former may be quoted. 'This worthy (the Wolfe) had a favourite
illegitimate son also called Alexander. He, as natural, followed his
father's footsteps, and collected a troop of barelegged ruffians who
reived and ravaged far and near. The Lindsays, Ogilvies, and other
gentlemen of Angus, resolved to put a stop to this, and collected a body
of men at arms aud Lowland bowmen, a sort of force which held the
Highland caterans in utter scorn as a set of rabble to be swept before
them. The Wolfe cubs, however, alighted on the tactic which in later
times made a Highland force terrible—a concentrated rush on the enemy.
This the small body of Highlanders caught on the rugged banks of the
Isla, and they were at once swept away, mail-clad horsemen and all,
before the horde of savages they had despised.' Then Burton goes on to
tell in the rugged verse of Wyntoun how Sir David Lyndsay pinned a
Highlander to the ground with his lance, and how the doomed man,
writhing up ('up throwing,' says Wyntoun), struck a savage blow at his
conqueror with his sword. Scott utilised this incident, which has been
recorded of other battles than that on the banks of Isla, including the
red Harlaw ' itself, and indeed is a common occurrence in savage
warfare.
There
is no record of the extent to which Stewart and his Highlanders pursued
their victory, in which a large number of Lowland, and especially
Perthshire, gentlemen fell. Still less is there evidence of its being
avenged. The feeble Government of the day proclaimed him and his chief
associates outlaws ' for the slaughter of Walter Ogilvy and others,' but
no punishment was ever inflicted upon them, and it is not impossible
that the Wolfe (for at the time of this raid the Earl of Buchan was
certainly alive) and his son .extended their authority into Perthshire.
If it could be proved that it is actually the Wolfe who is entombed in
Dunkeld Cathedral, such a view would be greatly strengthened.
Although Alexander Stewart, the second, did not succeed on his father's
death to the lordship of Badenoch, and does not appear to have thought
himself strong enough to seize it, he had early in the fourteenth
century obtained a high reputation as a leader of freebooters—a fact
which encourages the belief that it was he and not his younger brother
who overthrew the Perthshire knights in 1392. That a large number of his
father's retainers adhered to him may be considered certain. At their
head he considered himself equal to any undertaking. Nor was his
confidence ill-founded, as appears from the next episode in his career
which, even as told in the comparatively prosaic story of the
Douglas Peerage, is aflame with mediaeval
romance:—' Isobel, Countess of Mar, succeeded her brother, James Earl of
Douglas and Mar in his earldom of Mar, 1388. She married, first, Sir
Malcolm Drummond of Drummond, as appears from a charter of Robert the
Third to Malcolm Drummond, Earl of Mar, of a pension of £20 money furth
of Inverness, in recompense and satisfaction of the third part of the
ransom of Sir Randolph Percy, which exceeded £600. In this charter
Drummond is called the king's brother, aud Malcolm Drummond, Dominus de
Mar, witnessed a charter of King Robert III., 1398. He died, without
issue, before 27th May, 1403, when she was granted a charter in her
viduity. She took as her second husband Alexander Stewart, natural son
of Alexander, Earl of Buchan, fourth son of King Robert the Second. His
first appearance in life was at the head of a formidable baud of robbers
in the Highlands of Scotland. He cast his eyes on the Countess of Mar,
stormed her castle of Kildrummie, and, whether by violence or by
persuasion, obtained her in marriage. On the 12th August, 1404, under
the title of Isobel, Countess of Mar and Garioch, she granted her
earldom of Mar and Garioch, with all other lands, etc., belonging to her
by right of inheritance, to Alexander Stewart and the heirs to be
procreated betwixt him and her; which failing, to his lawful heirs and
assignees whatsoever, to be held as freely as she or her predecessors,
Earls of Mar or of Douglas, held the same. . . It would seem that
Alexander Stewart, enterprising as he was, soon became sensible that to
seize the castle, to wed the heiress, and to carry off the earldom from
the countess's lawful heirs, were measures too bold, even in an age of
misrule. He, therefore, endeavoured to palliate his conduct, and on the
19th September, 1404, he presented himself at the castle gate of
Kildrummie, and surrendered to the countess not only the castle but all
its furniture and the title-deeds therein kept. In testimony of this he
delivered the keys into her hands, freely and with a good heart, for her
to dispose of them as she pleased. The countess, holding the keys in her
hand, of mature advice, chose the said Alexander for her husband, and in
free marriage, gave him the castle, with its pertinents, the earldom of
Mar, etc., to be held by her said husband and herself aud the heirs to
be procreated betwixt them; which failing, to the said lady and her
lawful heirs; upon all which the said Alexander took instruments. In
terms of this declaration the lady, under the title of " Isabella de
Douglas Comitessa de Mar et de Garioch," granted a charter, 9th
December, 1404, that it might appear to have been granted without force
on the part of Alexander Stewart or fear on hers. By it she granted
in nostra pura et libera viduitate Alex-andro Senescallo in liberum
maritagium the whole Earldom of Mar. . . This
chapter was ratified under the Great Seal, 21st January, 1405. . . After
this, Alexander Stewart was uniformly styled Earl of Mar and Lord of
Garioch. . . The Countess died without issue, when in the terms of the
charter last recited, the fee of the Earldom should have devolved on the
heir of line, Janet Keith, wife of Sir Thomas Erskiue, the more
especially as King Robert III. had bound himself to Sir Thomas not to
ratify any contract or accept of any resignation' by which Isobella
Douglas, Couutess of Mar, etc., might attempt to alienate these earldoms
or any part of these lauds, given under his Great Seal, 22nd November,
1393. But this was disregarded by King James the First, whose great aim
was to unite the ancient earldoms to the Crown, and thus to sap the
foundations of a formidable aristocracy. Alexander Stewart, conscious
that he had nothing but a life-rent right, used the device of resigning
the earldom into the king's hands. Immediately upon this, a charter of
the earldom was granted by the king, 28th May, 1426, to Sir Alexander
Stewart and Sir Thomas Stewart, his natural son; to Sir Alexander for
his life, and after his death to Sir Thomas and the lawful heirs male of
his body, which failing, to return to the Crown. Thus the earldom,
instead of descending to the heirs-general of the ancient earls, was
limited to the heirs male of the body of Sir Thomas Stewart.'
It
might well be believed that there could not be a more successful and
complete exploit iu the way of ' taking the kingdom of love by violence'
than this of the second Alexander Stewart—the seizure of the countess
and the castle, the offer to set her free, and the final marriage
sanctioned by the king. But tradition, accepted by more than one
historian, has given a darker hue to the story, and has even imported
into it an element of Borgian horror. Sir Malcolm Drummond, the first
husband of the Couutess of Mar, was said to have been murdered, and it
was further averred that the murderer was the man whom she accepted, in
the long run willingly, as her second husband 1 In the
Exchequer Rolls (IV., p. 79), the crime is
fastened on Stewart as if there had been no doubt upon the matter :—'
One of the characteristically daring acts of these days was the murder
of Sir Malcolm Drummond, brother of the Queen, and Countess of Mar, by a
baud of Highland marauders, headed by a son of the lord of Badenoch,
Alexander Stewart, followed by an attack on the castle of Kildrummie,
where the widowed Countess resided, made by the same Alexander, who,
obtaining forcible possession of that lady, married her, and got with
her her earldom and estates.' Tytler is not quite so decided—' He who
was murdered to make way for this extraordinary intrusion of the son of
Buchan was the king's brother-in-law, and there seems to have been
little doubt that the successful wooer and the assassin of Drummond were
one and the same person.' Wyntouu's account in the
Cronykill of the death of Drummond and the '
intrusion' of Stewart, is even more guarded. Only one conclusion can
with safety be drawn from Wyntoun's homely narrative—Malcolm Drummond
undoubtedly predeceased his wife. There was a general belief at the time
that his death was due to foul play, and that he had been set upon and
murdered—or starved to death—by a body of Highland caterans. The fact
that his widow subsequently entered or was forced into a marriage with
Alexander Stewart was quite sufficient to start the story that he was
the instigator of Drummond's murder. On the face of it, the story is
incredible that the countess, especially after public opinion in
Scotland had virtually forced Stewart to set her at liberty and give her
freedom to marry whomsoever she chose, should have cast in her lot with
a man whose hands she knew to be red with the blood of the lover and
husband of her youth.
Stewart had by fair means or foul, at all events successfully
accomplished his object. He had obtained a position almost as powerful
as that of his father. He was life-renter, at least, of the great
estates of Mar and Garioch, and the most powerful noble in
Aberdeenshire. He had become the master of one of the strongest
fortresses in the country. The large and picturesquely-situated Castle
of Kildrummie, standing on a rocky eminence flanked by two ravines, and
covering with its outworks and courtyards an area of between two and
three acres, had been one of the seats of the kings of Scotland, and had
defied for a time the forces and the admirable strategy of Edward the
First. It is not quite certain when the wife he had won by such a
marvellous combination of audacity and astuteness died, although 1419 is
vaguely given by certain writers. Perhaps she did not long' survive her
second marriage. Historical records still iu existence seem to render it
probable that she was dead before February, 1408. After her death, or
perhaps even before it, Mar had resolved on the career his circumstances
enabled him to enter upon. He was not to be content, like his father,
with the 'splendid isolation ' of a great but essentially barbaric
chief. He would sink the
dux catervanorum in the brilliant courtier,
the astute diplomatist, the chivalrous knight, the politic statesman. It
may safely be inferred from certain of the valuable publications of the
Spalding Club throwing light upon the antiquities of Aberdeenshire, that
as soon as Mar was assured of his position by charters under the seal of
Robert the Third—two followed close upon each other, being dated 9th
December, 1404, and 21st January, 1405—he set to work, Highland
chieftain though he was, to cultivate friendly relations with his
neighbours, the essentially Lowland and Saxon burghers of the rising
town of Aberdeen. He succeeded in this, as in almost every enterprise he
turned his hand to. He was destined one dark but glorious and memorable
day to earn the gratitude of Aberdeen and of Scotland.
No
lees skilfully and successfully did he now set himself to play the part
of a great Scottish nobleman in the eyes of England and the Continent.
His recognition as Earl of Mar synchronized with the patching up of a
peace between England and Scotland. At all events, the nobles of the
larger kingdom felt freer to challenge the chivalry of the smaller to
friendly 'joustings.' Mar seized the opportunity. On the 5th September,
1406, he is found obtaining a 'safe conduct' from the King of England
for himself and seventy followers, for a passage of arms with Edmund,
Earl of Kent. It would seem tolerably certain that Mar paid two visits
to England in 1406. On the second occasion he went along with the Earl
of Crawford as an ambassador to conclude peace with England. That he
should have been chosen to fill a post of such a kind would seem, if not
to give the lie direct to the story of the murder of his wife's first
husband, at all events to make it quite clear that he was recognised as
one of the ablest of Scottish noblemen.
Without dogmatising too much on the subject of dates it is pretty safe
to assume that Mar spent the bulk both of 1406 and 1407 in England, and
that he made the best of his time by showing himself at once a gallant
kuight and a master of statecraft. In 1408 he sought fresh fields and
new pastures.
'The
next.yere eftyer folowand,
A thousand foure hundyr the auchtand,
The Erie of Marr past in Fraunce
In his delite and his plesance,
Wyth a nobill company
Wele arayt, and dantely
Knychtis and squieris, gret gentlimen,
Sexty or ma, ful noumeryt then
Men of counsale and of wertew
Off his Court and retinew.'
We
now come to an incident in Mar's wonderful career which is quite as
notable as the seizure of the castle of Kildrummie, and even more
mysterious. It is thus told in the
Historical and
Genealogical Account of the Stewarts,
published in 1739. ' He (Alexander Stewart) went into the service of the
Duke of Burgundy. He was designed "Dominus de Garrioch et Doffle in
Brabantia." He claimed the sovereignty of Holland in right of Jacquet,
or as Abercromby calls her Jane, his second wife, daughter to the Earl
of Holland, but, being denied his claim, he fought with the Hollanders
at sea, and gained the victory and a great prize; and at length made
peace or a hundred years' truce with them.' This story is evidently
based on the narratives of Boece and Drummond of Hawthornden. Another
version of the same story is given by the first Principal of King's
College, Aberdeen, who, about a century after the death of the victor of
Harlaw, collected all the traditions regarding him and committed them to
Latin, which was translated by the Archdeacon of Moray. ' He was ane
man-of singular virtew, in his tender yeris, and was at the siege of
Lodium, quhen it was tane by Phillip, Duke of Bur-gundee. And for the
gret glore that he wan at the said tornay, he was maryit on ane lady
namit Jane, countes of Holland. Nocht less, he was put fra her ;
uncertane quethir it come be the said countes, becaus scho had ane othir
husband, or becaus the inhabitants desirit nocht to be miugit with
uncouth blude. Within schort time efter, he returnit in Scotland and
send his servandis iu Holland, descreing the proffet of his land. And
becaus he got nocht bot repols thairof, he held continewall waris on the
Hollandaris quhill they war con-stranit to pleis him for all the
proffetis bygane, and tuke peace for Scottis for ane hundredth yeris.
This Erie of Mar was ane richt industrious and civill man; for he brocht
out of Hungary into Scotland, siudry gret hors and meris, to spreid the
cuutre be their generatioun. Thus was the cuutre, within few yeris efter,
fillit ful of gret hors; howbeit afore his time was nocht but small
naggis in this reahne.'
Let
us, so far as is now possible, attempt to rescue the truth from its
environment of miraculous legend. There is no doubt whatever as to the
battle of Liege and the brilliant part played in it by Mar. The early
history of Liege was a long struggle between its bishop-princes and its
liberty-loving burghers. Philip of Burgundy but anticipated in 1407, and
in the interest of John of Bavaria, 'the elect of Liege'—an 'intruded
presentee,' in fact—what Charles the Bold did nearly sixty years after.
Indeed, as late as 1684, ' the elect of Liege' only succeeded in
effecting an entrance into the city with a foreign army at his back.
Similarly Mar, Scrimgeour, and their gallant company, anticipated by
their services to Philip and John the effective aid rendered by
Crawford, Le Balafre, and Quentin Durward to Charles the Bold and Louis
the Eleventh. There are too many allusions to the presence and
achievements of Mar and his company in the various chronicles of the
period for us to have any doubts on the matter. Guill-aume Paradin, in
his Annates de
Bourgogne, says: 'Semblable-ment s'y trouva
le Comte de Marausse Ecossais acre bien quatrc combattants.' Des Ursins
also mentions Mar. There is, indeed, no special allusion to him by any
of the German writers on this period, but the explanation of the
omission no doubt is that these historians regarded Mar and his
detachment ot ' combattants' as volunteers, and not as an integral
portion of the besieging Burgundiau force.
Mar's
marriage is much more of a mystery—
'The
Erie of Mar, of his prowes,
That hiely comuiendits wes,
A lady weddit, gret of land,
The Lady of Duffyl in Braband.'
Thus
Wyntoun, with his usual confidence. The writer of the history of the
family of Horn (Nisbet, II., p. 71), says that the Earl of Mar's wife
was Mary de Homes, and that he got with her the lordships of Duffel aud
Walhem. Boece gives her name as Jacoba, while, as has been already seen,
the Aberdeen historian styles her Jane. It will probably never be
ascertained who it was that filar married or if his marriage is a myth.
It is highly probable, however, to say the least of it, that in some way
or another he obtained a grant of lands in Brabant. There is a charter
by ' Alexander Stewart, Earl of Marr and Garioch, and
Dominus de Dufle in Brobant, to his brother,
Andrew Stewart (Andrew fought by his side at the Battle of Liege), of
the lands of Sandbalch, in Banffshire, which is confirmed by Robert Duke
of Albany.' In 1440, Robert, Earl of Mar aud Lord of Erskine, is found
granting a charter which confirms a previous ' charter made by the
deceased Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar and of Garioch, and lord of
Dnfle iu Brabant.' It is possible, therefore that Stewart contracted a
second marriage, which was as unfortunate as the first in this respect
that there was no issue of it, and that it made him a life-renter of
Dufle as the first had made him a life-renter of Mar and Garioch. It is
practically certain that he was granted lands in Brabant, which of
course, on his death without heirs, lapsed to their superior. It may be
assumed, however, that he did not marry the Countess of Holland. That
lady, if all stories are true, gave her relatives a great deal of
trouble by her imprudent marriages ; indeed, she is even said to have
been deposed from her office on account of them. But the Earl of Mar is
not in the 'official list' of her husband'. The story told by Boece and
Drummond of Hawthorndeu of his waging war with a powerful fleet bears a
suspicious resemblance to a similar one told of Humphrey, Duke of
Gloucester. Yet, as will be seen later on, a grain or two of truth may
be mixed up with the tradition.
Not-later than Christmas of 1408—there is some doubt as to whether it
was in that year or in 1407 that the battle of Liege was fought—Mar was
back in Paris, and, according to Michel, was the cynosure of all, and
especially of female, eyes. On the 29th of December we find a 'safe
conduct' granted by the King of England to ' the Earl of Mar and thirty
persons in his train passing from France through England to Scotland.'
It may be assumed that he and they were back in Kildrummie Castle some
time in the course of 1409. They soon found enough of work to do.
'The
roistering leader of ragamuffins, coming home with his foreign
experience, became a mighty general and sage statesman, and, like many
others who pass from disreputable into creditable and profitable
courses, he achieved the suppression of those who, while he was sowing
his wild oats, were his companions and tools.' Thus, in his
Scot Abroad, Burton somewhat flippantly
alludes to the great service which Mar, aided by his companions-at-arms,
was able to render to his neighbours more immediately, and his
countrymen in general, and the importance of which has been adequately
recognised in the satirist's own
History of Scotland. Of late a tendency has
been shown to dispute Burton's view of the importance in its bearing on
the future of Scotland, of the battle fought at Harlaw, eighteen miles
from Aberdeen, on the 24th July, 1411, between the Highlanders under
Donald, Lord of the Isles, and the Lowlanders of Mar, Garioch, Buchan,
Angus and Mearns, under the Earl of Mar. It has been said that only a
temporary check was given to the 'Highland Host' by the victory of
Stewart, aud that even the pretensions of Donald were revived by his son
Alexander. But, on the other hand, it may be questioned if ever the
caterans had such an opportunity as that which, thanks to the
generalship of Mar, they lost at Harlaw. Scotland was in a state of
anarchy when Donald, with his Islemen, burst upon Aberdeenshire, and
threatened to burn its capital. The king was a prisoner in England.
Regent Albany, who nominally governed Scotland, was not such a weakling
as his son Murdoch, who succeeded him, but he was now an old man of
threescore and ten. Moreover, he was universally detested by the other
Scotch nobles for his selfish rapacity. It was, indeed, on account of a
private quarrel that Donald raised the flag of rebellion. On the death
of the Wolfe of Badenoch, the earldom of Ross fell nominally into the
hands of the Crown, really into those of Albany. Donald claimed the
earldom in virtue of his wife—the claim was subsequently allowed by
James the First when put forward by the next Lord of the Isles—and took
up arms in support of it. The chances are that had Donald been able to
push south, he would have been joined by hosts of malcontents, and that
he would have been able with perfect ease to overthrow such government
as existed in Edinburgh. So strong a king as England then possessed in
Henry IV. would not have been slow to take advantage of the situation
thus created to accomplish the work which had proved too much for even
such capable monarchs as Edward the First and Edward the Third. It might
be too much to say that Alexander Stewart saved the independence of
Scotland as effectually as did Robert Bruce at Bannockburn, but it is
not too much to say that he was as great a benefactor to his country as
was that High Steward of Scotland who, in 1193, and in the reign of
Malcolm IV., overthrew and slew the first Lord of the Isles, the
redoubtable Somerled. Of the courage and capacity of the man who, with a
force of probably not more than 1,200 men, and many, if not most of
them, the undisciplined though brave citizens of Aberdeen, had the
courage to attack a ferocious enemy six, if not ten times, as numerous,
and who, when that force had been cut to pieces and had lost all its
best leaders but himself, still held his ground, there never has been
any question whatever. The soldier to whom belong the honours of Harlaw
was one of the greatest commanders that Scotland ever produced.
From
1411 to his death iu 1435, Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar, was one of
the foremost men north of the Tweed. The fact that he is so often
mentioned in public documents as 'Regis locum tenens' would seem to
prove that for a time he held his father's old post of king's seneschal
beyond the High-laud line, if not of justiciary north of the Forth. Five
years after Harlaw we find him travelling in England in winter doubtless
to visit the friends he had made in his 'jousting' days.-Charters seem
to prove that in 1419 and 1423—the latter the year when James I. was
released by the King of England—he held the post of Admiral of the Realm
of Scotland. We shall probably never know the entire truth of Mar's
achievements at sea, so curiously reflected in the extraordinary story
of his war upon the Dutch. But in the British Museum there is a letter
from the Duke of Bedford to his father, Henry IV., written apparently in
1405, and stating that 'the Earl of Mar, Alexander Stuart, is at sea
between Berwick and Newcastle, despoiling English vessels.' In an
English State document also there occurs this passage :—' The King to
Robert Tempest., Sheriff of Northumberland, and John Elyngeham, his
Sergeant-at-arms. Having lately ordered Robert Umfraville, then Sheriff,
and others, to inquire into whose hands the merchandise of certain Scots
wrecked in a Flemish ship at Werkworth, had come, and detaiu them till
redress was made under the truce for a cargo of wheat and beans value
200 marks, shipped for the garrison of Calais, and goods worth £500
belonging to Richard Whytington and others of London, iu the
Thomas of London, captured at sea by the Earl
of Marr and other Scots, and learning that these Scots goods and
prisoners of the greatest value were in the hands of Robert Ogle and
others, commands the Sheriff to see they are at once delivered to
Umfraville.' It is odd—or rather would have been odd in the case of a
less extraordinary man—to find Alexander Stewart anticipating the naval
exploits of the Bartons and Sir Andrew Wood, and even, after the manner
of Drake singeing the beard of the time-honoured Dick Whittington.
When
eight months after his accession to the throne of Scotland James the
First set himself resolutely to break the power of the turbulent nobles,
he found iu the Earl of Mar a loyal supporter. Stewart figures in 1424
as one of the assize which at Stirling found Murdoch, Duke of Albany,
his son Walter, his brother Alexander, and their grandfather, the Earl
of Lennox, guilty of treason. In 1430 James named him one of the '
conservators' appointed on behalf of Scotland to conclude a truce with
the King of England. The following year Mar, who was now probably
between sixty and seventy years of age, sustained his one defeat. At all
events the Scottish chronicles tell this story—
'Donald Balloch, a near relative of the Lord of the Isles, collected a
fleet and army in the Hebrides, ran his galleys into the neck of sea
which divides Morven from the little island of Lismore, and,
disembarking at Lochaber, broke down upon that district with all the
ferocity of northern warfare, cutting to pieces a superior force
commanded by Alexander, Earl of .Mar, and Alan Stewart, Earl of
Caithness, whom James had stationed there for the protection of the
Highlands. The conflict took place at Inverlochy. The Earl of Caithness,
with sixteen of his personal retinue, and many other barons and knights,
were left dead on the field, while Mar, with great difficulty, succeeded
in rescuing the remains of the Royal army.'
The
probability is that the importance of this surprise has been greatly
exaggerated, for it is quite certain that James defeated Donald
Balloch's superior, Alexander, the Lord of Isles, when he wasted the
crown-lands near Inverness, and burned the town, and compelled him to
implore mercy at Holyrood. In any case, it will be seen that Mar was
able to show a little of his old generalship by saving the remnants of
the Royal army.
According to most of the old Scottish chroniclers Mar died on the 26th
July, 1435. So highly was his memory respected that on the anniversary
of his death a mass was said yearly for his soul's repose at the altar
of St. Katharine in the cathedral church of St. Mary and St. Machar at
Aberdeen. ' Septimo Kalendas Augusti obitus magnifici ac potentis Domini
Alexandri Stuart comitis de Mar et de Garwyach ac locum tenentis Domini
Regis Scotorum.4 This commemoration
was provided out of the bounty of Master John of Clat, canon of Brechin
and Aberdeen.
The
Earl of Mar's son, Thomas, predeceased him, and his estates lapsed to
the Crown. The fabric of power which he had built up may be said to have
disappeared at his death as completely as had that constructed by his
father before him. It was left for the heads of other branches of his
family to continue his work and to demonstrate that ' charm of the
Stewarts,' the irresistible and immortal character of which is. only now
being thoroughly understood. But even among them there are no more
notable figures than the two Alexanders as we get glimpses of them
through the mists of history—the grim old baron, the father, who held
after his own curious fashion, that 'clericalism is the enemy,' and
struck doughty blows at it with his mailed fist, and the brilliant
versatile son, who after a youth of extraordinary and audacious
adventure, became one of Scotland's greatest captains, statesmen, and
patriots. |
