‘A merry place it was in days of yore,
But something ails it now—the place is curst.’

When ‘the ten years’ conflict’ between the King and the Covenanters began, in the memorable General Assembly which met at Glasgow in November, 1638, the Earl of Traquair was one of the assessors to the Royal Commissioner, the Marquis of Hamilton. After the Covenanters had, by an appeal to arms, compelled the King to yield to their demands in the Pacification of Berwick, Traquair was appointed Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly which met at Edinburgh, 12th August, 1639. He had a very difficult, and, indeed, dangerous task to perform. While apparently willing to yield to the popular current, the King was obstinately bent on carrying out his own schemes. His representative was therefore instructed to appear to grant everything which the people desired, but with such artful qualifications and reservations, as in reality to concede nothing. He was ‘to give way for the present to that which will be prejudicial to the Church, and to the Government, but to do so in such a way as would reserve a plea for withdrawing these concessions when the proper time should come.’ A hint was also given to the clergy that they should deliver secretly to the Commissioner a ‘protestation and remonstrance against this Assembly and Parliament,’ which might afterwards serve as a pretext for cancelling their proceedings. Traquair seems to have played his difficult part with great dexterity. On the one hand he gave assent in his Majesty’s name to the Acts of the Glasgow Assembly, the abolition of Episcopacy, the rescinding of the five Articles of Perth, and the ratification of the Covenant, to which he appended his signature, both as Commissioner and as an individual. On the other hand he made at the outset a most plausible pretext, reserving his Majesty’s right for redress of anything that might be done prejudicial to his service.

The day after the rising of the Assembly, the Commissioner opened Parliament in great state, the ‘riding’ of the members—a procession on horseback from Holyrood to the Parliament Close— and all the other forms and honours due to royalty, being observed with more than customary splendour. The Estates, which had hitherto met in the dingy recesses of the Tolbooth, now for the first time assembled in the great new hall of the Parliament House, with its fine roof made of oaken beams, which has ever since been one of the most interesting structures in the metropolis. The meeting, however, was short and stormy, and as Traquair, with all his dexterity and eloquence, was unable to control their proceedings, he prorogued the Parliament in order that he might receive fresh instructions from the King, and did not again appear in person at their meetings. The Covenanters, though unable to penetrate the thick veil of duplicity and deceit in which the King and his Commissioner had enveloped their policy, were quite aware of the insincerity and hostility both of Charles and his most-trusted Councillor. Traquair was regarded as by no means the worst of the ‘Malignants,’ but his energy and ability rendered him especially formidable. Hence, when their day of triumph arrived in 1641, they compelled the King to give his assent to the exclusion of the Earl from the benefit of the ‘Act of Oblivion,’ as an incendiary betwixt England and Scotland, and betwixt the King and his subjects. In the previous session of Parliament, an Act had been passed ‘anent leising makers of quhatsomever qualitie, office, place, or dignity,’ which declares that ‘all bad counsillars quha, instead of giving his Majestie trew and effauld counsaill, has given or will give informatone and counsaill to the evident prejudice and ruine of the liberties of this kirk and kingdom, suld be exemplarlie judged and censured.’ Sir James Balfour asserts this Act ‘was purposelie made to catche Traquair.’ He was accordingly impeached in Parliament as an incendiary, and found guilty. Charles interfered to save him from capital punishment, but he was deprived of his office as Treasurer, and obliged to find caution to conduct himself in such a manner as would best conduce to the peace of the country, under penalty of the forfeiture of the pardon he had received from his Majesty. The dominant party in Parliament were not inclined to use their power with moderation or mercy, and they compelled the King to promise that he would not employ Traquair or any of the other ‘incendiaries’ in any public office, without consent of the Estates, or even allow them access to his person, lest they should give him evil counsel.

The Earl of Traquair was one of the Scottish nobles who in 1643 subscribed a remonstrance expressing strong disapproval of the combination of the Scottish Estates and the English Parliament against the King, and was in consequence, on the ground that he had violated the conditions on which he had been set at liberty, declared an enemy to religion, and to the peace of the kingdom. His movable goods were confiscated and his estates sequestrated. He averted the entire forfeiture of his property, and obtained a pardon, by the payment of 40,000 marks, along with the conditions that he should subscribe the Covenant, and confine himself within the counties of Roxburgh, Selkirk, and Peebles, and promise that he would not repair to the King’s presence. He is alleged to have sent his son, Lord Linton, with a troop of horse, to join Montrose the day before the battle of Philiphaugh (September 13th, 1645), but to have withdrawn them during the night. It is also reported that when the great Marquis, in his flight from the battle-field, accompanied by a few followers, reached Traquair House, the Earl and his son refused to receive them—an incident which, if true, tends to confirm the opinion generally entertained of this shifty noble, that he was an unprincipled trimmer on whom neither party could rely.

In 1647, when Charles had taken refuge in the Scottish camp, Traquair was restored, and appointed a member of the Committee of Estates, probably in consequence of a letter which the King wrote in his behalf to the Earl of Lanark, the Scottish Secretary of State. ‘I must not he negligent,’ he said, ‘on Traquair’s behalf as not to name his business to you for admitting him to his place in Parliament, of which I will say no more; but you know his sufferings for me, and this is particularly recommended to you by your most assured real constant friend, Charles R.’ In 1648, Traquair raised a troop of horse for the ‘Engagement’ to attempt the rescue of the King from the victorious Parliament, and with his son, Lord Linton, was taken prisoner at the battle of Preston. He was confined for four years in Warwick Castle, and his estates were a second time sequestrated. He was ultimately set at liberty by Cromwell, and returned to Scotland, where he spent the remainder of his days in great poverty and obscurity. His son, Lord Linton, though he had taken part in his father’s efforts on behalf of King Charles, had by some means—probably by joining the extreme Presbyterian party—succeeded in rescuing a portion of the family property, and was able to reside at Traquair; but much to his discredit, he refused to give assistance to his aged and impoverished father. During the last two years of his life, the old Earl was reduced to such straits as to be dependent on charity for the necessaries of life. It is stated by the author of ‘A Journey through Scotland, in Familiar Letters,’ that this once great noble and state officer ‘would take an alms though not publicly ask for it. There are some, still alive at Peebles that have seen him dine on a salt herring and an onion.’

In the curious account of the Frasers, by James Fraser of Kirkhill, recently brought to light, there is the following passage respecting the first Earl. ‘He was a true emblem of the vanity of the world— a very meteor. I saw him begging in the streets of Edinburgh. He was in an antique garb, and a broad old hat, short cloak, and pannier breeches; and I contributed in my quarters in the Canon-gate towards his relief. We gave him a noble, he standing with his hat off. The Master of Lovat, Culbockie, Glenmorrison, and myself were there, and he received the piece of money from my hand as humbly and thankfully as the poorest supplicant. It is said that at a time he had not to pay for cobbling his boots, and died in a poor cobbler’s house.’ [The Earl of Traquair was not the only ‘emblem of the vanity of the world’ to be seen during the Great Civil War. The head of the ancient family of the Mowbrays of Barnbougle was reduced to a similar state of destitution. In the sessions record of a parish in Strathmore, under the date of February 17, 1650, there is the following entry, ‘Gave this day to Sir Robert Moubray, sometime laird of Barnbougle, now become through indigence ane poor supplicant, twenty-four shillings’ [Scots].] He died in 1659, ‘sitting in his chair at his own house,’ says Nicol, ‘without any preceding sickness,’ and ‘but little lamented.’ His death, it is said, was hastened, if not caused, by the want of the necessaries of life. This melancholy example of the mutability of fortune, was repeatedly employed by the Treasurer’s contemporaries to ‘point a moral and adorn a tale.’ The annotator on Scott of Scotstarvit’s ‘Staggering State of Scots Statesmen,’ says that at his burial this unfortunate nobleman ‘had no mortcloth [pall] but a black apron, nor towels, but leashes belonging to some gentlemen that were present; and the grave being two feet shorter than his body, the assistants behoved to stay till the same was enlarged and he buried.’

If we may believe a story handed down by tradition, related by Sir Walter Scott, and embodied in a ballad published in his ‘Border Minstrelsy,’ the Earl of Traquair must have been as unscrupulous in the means he employed to promote his own private interests, as in the steps which he took to carry out the policy of the Court. When he was at the height of his power, he had a lawsuit of great importance, which was to be decided in the Court of Session, and there was every reason to believe that the judgment would turn upon the casting-vote of the President, Sir Alexander Gibson, titular Lord Dune, whose opinion was understood to be adverse to Traquair’s interest. Dune was not only an able lawyer but an upright judge—a character not very ‘common in Scotland in those days, when the maxim, ‘Show me the man and I’ll show you the law’ was of very general application. As the President was proof both against bribes and intimidation, it was necessary for the success of the Lord Treasurer in his lawsuit that he should, in one way or other, be disposed of. There was a stalwart Borderer, named William Armstrong, called, for the sake of distinction, ‘Christie’s Will,’ a lineal descendant of the famous Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie, who, for some marauding exploits, had been imprisoned in the Tolbooth of Jedburgh, and was indebted to Traquair for his liberty, if not for his life. To this daring moss-trooper the Earl applied for help in this extremity, and he, without hesitation, undertook to kidnap the President, and keep him out of the way till the cause should be decided. On coming to Edinburgh, he discovered that the judge was in the habit of taking the air on horseback on Leith sands without an attendant. Watching his opportunity one day, when the judge was taking his usual airing, Armstrong accosted him, and contrived, by his amusing conversation, to decoy the President to an unfrequented and furzy common, called the Figgit Whins, where he suddenly pulled him from his horse, blindfolded him, and muffled him in a large cloak. In this condition the luckless judge was trussed up behind Christie’s Will, and carried across the country by unfrequented by-paths, and deposited in an old castle in Annandale, not far from Moffat, called the Tower of Graham. Meanwhile, his horse having been found wandering on the sands, it was concluded that its rider had been thrown into the sea and drowned. His friends went into mourning, and a successor was appointed to his office by the Lord Treasurer. The President spent three dreary months in the dungeon of the Border fortalice, receiving his food through an aperture in the wall, seeing no one, and never hearing the sound of a human voice, save when a shepherd called upon his dog Bawty, or a female inmate of the tower on her cat Madge. In the words of the ballad—

‘For nineteen days and nineteen nights
Of sun, or moon, or midnight stars,
Auld Dune never saw a blink,
The lodging was sae dark and dour.

He thought the warlocks o’ the rosy cross
Had fang’d him in their nets sae fast,
Or that the gipsies’ glamoured gang
Had lair’d his learning at the last.

"Hey! Bawty lad! far yond! far yond!"
These were the morning sounds heard he;
And een "alack !" Auld Dune cried,
"The Deil is hounding his tykes on me !"

And whiles a voice on Baudrons cried,
With sound uncouth, and sharp, and hie;
"I have tar-barrell’d mony a witch,
And now I think they’ll clear scores wi’ me ! "

At length the lawsuit was decided in favour of Lord Traquair, and Will was directed to set the President at liberty. In the words of the ballad—

‘Traquair has written a privie letter,
And he has sealed it wi’ his seal—
"Ye may let the auld brock out of the poke,
My land’s my ain, and a’s gane weel."’

Accordingly Will entered the vault at dead of night, muffled the President once more in his cloak, without speaking a single word, placed him on horseback as before, and, conveying him to Leith sands, set down the astonished judge on the very spot where he had taken him up. He, of course, claimed and obtained his office and honours, probably not much to the satisfaction of his successor. The common belief at the time, in which the President shared, was that he had been spirited away by witchcraft; and it was not until after the lapse of a good many years that the truth was brought to light. [The truth of this strange incident does not rest wholly on tradition, for Forbes, in his journal of the Session, published in 1714, says: "Tis commonly reported that some party in a considerable action before the session finding that Lord Ducie could not be persuaded to think his plea good, fell upon a stratagem to prevent the influence and weight which his lordship might have to his prejudice by causing some strong men to kidnap him in the Links of Leith, at his diversion on a Saturday afternoon, and transport him to some blind and obscure room in the country, where he was detained captive, without the benefit of daylight, a matter of three months (though otherwise civilly and well entertained), during which time his lady and children went in mourning for him as dead. But after the cause aforesaid was decided, the Lord Ducie was carried back by incognitos, and dropt in the same place where he had been taken up.’ —Minstrels, of the Scottish Border, iv. pp. 94, 95. ]

It appears from Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials that George Meldrum, the younger, of Dumbreck, with the assistance of three Border thieves, kidnapped Gibson of Dune, and kept him prisoner for some time in a Border tower. But this may have been done at the instigation of Traquair, or the President may have been carried off a second time. It is not probable that the tradition long current on the Borders should have been wholly groundless.

This was not the only occasion on which the Lord Treasurer was indebted to Armstrong for important assistance. During the Great Civil War, it was of vital consequence to the royal service that a certain packet of papers should be transmitted to the King from his friends in Scotland. But the task was both difficult and dangerous, for the Parliamentary leaders kept strict watch on the Borders, to prevent any communication between Charles and the Scottish Royalists. In this strait, Traquair had once more recourse to ‘Christie’s Will,’ who readily undertook the commission, and succeeded in conveying the packet safely to the King. On his return, however, with his Majesty’s answer, he was waylaid at Carlisle, where, unconscious of danger, he halted for some time to refresh his horse. On resuming his journey, as soon as he began to pass the long and narrow bridge which crossed the Eden at that place, both ends of the pass were immediately occupied by a detachment of Parliamentary soldiers, who were lying in wait for him. The daring Borderer, however, without a moment’s hesitation, spurred his horse over the parapet, and plunged into the river, which was in high flood. After a desperate struggle, he effected a landing at a steep bank called the Stanners, and set off at full speed towards the Scottish Borders, pursued by the troopers, who had for a time, stood motionless in astonishment at his temerity. He was well mounted, however, and having got the start, he kept ahead of his pursuers, menacing with his pistols any of them who seemed likely to gain on him. They followed him as far as the river Esk, that divides the two kingdoms, which he swam without hesitation, though it flowed ‘from bank to brae.’ On reaching Scottish ground, the dauntless moss-trooper turned on the northern bank, and, in the true spirit of a Border raider, invited his pursuers to cross the river, and drink with him. After this taunt he proceeded on his journey to the Scottish capital, and faithfully placed the royal letters in the hands of Traquair.

The Earl was succeeded in his titles, and the remnant of his estates, by his only son Lord Linton, of whose ‘unnatural conduct to his parents’ loud complaints have been made. Though an elder in the kirk, he was accused of drinking and swearing; and while professing to be an adherent of the extreme Presbyterian party, he married in succession two ladies who were Roman Catholics. The records of the Kirk Session of Inverleithen mention, in 1647, that ‘for the more speedy carrying out of their acts, the Session resolve to elect Lord Linton an elder, which was accordingly done, his lordship promising before the whole congregation to be faithful in the function.’ In April, 1648, he was appointed to attend the ensuing Synod, as ruling elder from the session. Lord Linton’s conduct, however, speedily subjected him both to civil and ecclesiastical penalties. In 1649 he married Lady Henrietta Gordon, a daughter of George, second Marquis of Huntly, the leader of the Roman Catholic party in Scotland, who had shortly before been beheaded at the cross of Edinburgh. Lady Henrietta was the widow of George, Lord Seton, eldest son of the second Earl of Winton, also a leader among the Royalists. The marriage of an elder of the Presbyterian Church to an excommunicated Papist must have excited the strongest feelings of disapproval throughout the whole body, and was regarded as a heinous offence. The marriage ceremony was performed, contrary to law, privately and without the proclamation of banns, by the minister of Dawick, who was deposed and excommunicated for this violation of the law both of Church and State. Lord Linton himself was fined £5,000 Scots, and was also excommunicated and imprisoned. These severe penalties, however, did not deter him from repeating the offence. His wife lived only a year after her marriage, and in 1654 Lord Linton took for his second wife Lady Anne Seton, half-sister of the brother of Lady Henrietta—a union forbidden by the canon law which regulates the marriages of the members of the Roman Catholic Church, to which Lady Anne belonged. Lord Linton still kept up his connection with the Presbyterian Church, but his irregular conduct subjected him to the censures of the Presbytery of Peebles, which at that time had no respect of persons. In its records, under the date of August 9, 1657, there is the following entry, ‘The Lord Lyntoun (after many citations) called, compeared, and being charged by the Moderator with these several miscarriages, viz., absenting himself from the church, drinking, swearing, &c., he took with them [admitted them], craved God’s mercie and prayed for grace to eschew them in time coming. Whereupon, his lordship being removed, the Presbytery resolved that the Moderator should give him a grave rebuke, and exhort him to seek God, and to forbear those evills in time coming, which was accordingly done.’

An entry in the Justice of Peace Records of the county affords another glimpse of the position of this inconsistent and not over reputable noble. Under the date of January 30th, 1658, it is said, ‘This day the commander of the troops lying in the shires of Peebles and Selkirk, desired information from the justices of all Papists living within the shire of Peebles, that he might prescribe ane order for their personal deportment. The bench declared they knew of no Papists in the shire except those who lived in Lord Linton’s family, Lord Linton himself declared that his lady and three women were the only Papists in his house.’

The second Earl of Traquair died in April, 1666, in his forty-fourth year, having had issue only by his second wife, four sons and three daughters. The Privy Council, apprehensive that the Dowager Lady Traquair would bring up her elder surviving son, William, in the Roman Catholic faith, enjoined her, in 1672, when the youthful Earl had reached his fifteenth year, to attend at Holyrood House, and bring her son with her. She thought fit to disobey this summons, and a warrant was immediately issued to messengers-at-arms to bring the Countess, along with her son, before the Council. Both were produced within a week. In the Privy Council Records, under date February 8, the disposal of the case is thus narrated, ‘Compeared the Countess of Traquair, with her son the Earl, who is ordered to be consigned to the care of the Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow, to be educated in the Reformed religion, at sight of the Archbishop of Glasgow. No Popish servants to be allowed to attend him.’ The order was, however, by some means evaded, and was repeated nearly two years later, December, 1673. Once more ‘at Holyrood House, the Countess of Traquair compeared to exhibit her son the Earl, in order to be educated in the Reformed religion. The Council resolve he shall be sent to a good school, with a pedagogue and servants, as the Archbishop of Glasgow should name, the Earl of Galloway to defray charges. A letter to be sent to the Archbishop, and that the lady in the meantime keep the Earl, her son, for ten or twelve days.’

It does not appear whether these measures were effectual in retaining the young Earl in the Presbyterian fold, or whether his mother succeeded in enticing him to enter the Romish Church. He died unmarried, and was succeeded by CHARLES, the third son of the second Earl—the second son, George, having died unmarried. The new Earl had yielded to his mother’s influence, and had openly embraced the Roman Catholic faith. He suffered considerable annoyance on account of his religious opinions at the time of the Revolution, as appears from a statement of the celebrated Peter Walker, the Packman, in his ‘Vindication of Mr. Richard Cameron,’ published in the ‘Biographia Presbyteriana.’ ‘In the end of the year 1688, at the happy Revolution, when the Duke of York [James VII.] fled, and the crown was vacant, in which time we had no king, nor judicatories in the kingdom, the United Societies, in their general correspondence, considering the surprising, unexpected, merciful step of the Lord’s dispensation, thought it someway belonged to us in the interregnum to go to all Popish houses, and destroy their monuments of idolatry, with their priests’ robes, and to apprehend and put to prison themselves: which was done at the cross of Dumfries, and Peebles, and other places. That honourable and worthy gentleman, Donald Ker of Kersland, [Ker, though possessing the confidence of the Covenanters, was in reality employed by the Government as a spy and informer. ] having a considerable number of us with him, went to the house of Traquair, in frost and snow, and found a great deal of Romish wares there, but wanted the cradle, Mary and the Babe, and the priest. He sent James Arcknyes and some with him to the house of Mr. Thomas Lewis, who had the name of a Presbyterian minister. Kersland ordered them to search his house narrowly and behave themselves discreetly, which they did. Mr. Lewis and his wife mocked them, without offering them either meat or drink, though they had much need of it. At last they found two trunks locked, which they desired to have opened. Mr. Lewis then left them. They broke up the coffers, wherein they found a golden cradle with Mary and the Babe in her bosom; in the other trunk the priest’s robes (the Earl and the priest were fled), which they brought all to the cross of Peebles, with a great deal of Popish books, and many other things of great value, all Romish wares, and burnt them there. At the same time we concluded to go to all the prelatical and intruding curates, and to give them warning to remove, with all that belonged to them.’

It is evident that Peter Walker and his associates had not been taught toleration by their own sufferings.

Their adoption of the Roman Catholic faith excluded the Traquair family both from Parliament, and from public office. Thus shut out from intimate association with the great body of the Scottish nobles and gentry, the successive Earls, remarkable for nothing but their longevity, spent their lives in obscurity on the remnant of their ancestral estate, which now yields a rental of only £4,846 a year.

CHARLES, seventh Earl of Traquair, made application in 1779 for a concession of the exclusive working of certain mines in Spain, in which he believed there were vast deposits of coal. The Earl seems also to have entertained the wish that a grandeeship and a suitable establishment in Spain should be conferred upon him, because a cadet of his family had formerly gone to that country, and allied himself to one of the noble houses. He applied to Henry Stewart, Cardinal York, the last of the royal Stewarts, for his influence in the matter, who replied to his letter in kind and courteous terms. ‘You may be assured,’ he said, ‘I have full cognizance of the merits and prerogatives of your family, but I cannot but remark that it is the first time in all my lifetime I have ever seen your signature, or that of anyone belonging to you. That, however, has not hindered me from writing a very strong letter to the Duque of Alcudia in your favour, and I have also taken other means for to facilitate the good success of your petition. I heartily wish my endeavours may have their effect in reguard of you and your son, and the meanwhile be assured of my sincere esteem and kind friendship.’ It appears that the application was not successful, for a second equally kind letter from the Cardinal, in 1795, expresses his hope that the affair will have a successful termination. The concession, however, was not granted.

On the death of the eighth Earl in 1861, in his eighty-first year, the titles of the family became extinct. His sister, Lady Louisa Stuart, however, continued to possess the family estates and to reside in the antique, deserted-looking mansion of her fathers, probably the oldest inhabited house in Scotland, until December, 1875, when she passed away, in the hundredth year of her age. It does not appear, however, that the venerable lady was depressed, or saddened either by the decayed fortunes of her family, or by the reflection that she was the last of her race. She continued to the end cheerful and active, kind and charitable, fond of dress and of news, interested in all the events passing around her, and, in spite of her great age, was a frequent traveller. Her stately manners well became her position and descent, and, though she went to the grave like a shock of corn fully ripe, her death caused sadness and regret throughout Tweeddale and the Forest. At her death the Traquair mansion and estates passed to the Hon. William Constable Maxwell, a younger son of Lord Herries, whose ancestor, the sixth Earl of Nithsdale, married his cousin, the fourth daughter of the fourth Earl of Traquair.

The world on which Lady Louisa looked, not only in youth and middle age, but even in her advanced years, differed so widely from that on which she closed her eyes, that it might almost seem as if several centuries had intervened between the beginning and the end of her career. When she was born the Bourbons ruled, apparently with a firm hand, in France, Spain, and Naples; the Hapsburgs were Emperors of Germany; Italy was a congeries of petty, powerless principalities; Turkey was a formidable power; Poland was still a kingdom, and Russia a barbarous and almost unknown region. America was then only a dependency of Great Britain, though the conflict had begun which was to terminate, before Lady Louisa left the nursery, in the total separation of the American colonies from the mother country. The East India Company was then little more than an association of traders, and our Indian Empire was merely in its infancy. She was ten years of age when the famous trial of Warren Hastings, before the House of Lords, commenced. She was a young lady of seventeen when the first French Revolution broke out, and the whole civilised world stood aghast at the frightful massacres which ensued, at the execution of Louis XVI. and his queen, and the cruelties inflicted on the Royalists, with whom both the political and religious principles of the Traquair family must have made them deeply sympathise. She witnessed the astonishing results of the French revolutionary wars, the overthrow of ancient dynasties, and the adjustment and re-adjustment over and over again of the map of Europe; the Continent prostrate at the feet of Bonaparte; and the succession of brilliant naval victories of Rodney, Howe, Jervis, and Nelson, from Cape St. Vincent to Trafalgar, which made Britain the undisputed mistress of the seas. She had reached middle life when Napoleon invaded Russia and lost both his splendid army and his throne amid its snows, and when Wellington, having baffled the best French generals, drove their armies, in confusion out of the Peninsula, and planted the British standard on the soil of France. She was about forty years of age when the crowning victory of Waterloo restored peace to Europe and consigned the common enemy to his life-long prison on St. Helena. It is striking that one who witnessed in mature years the rise, progress, and overthrow, of the first French Empire, should have lived to see, half a century later, the establishment and destruction of the Second Empire, and ‘haughty Gaul,’ which had so often invaded, plundered, and oppressed other nations, compelled to drain to the dregs the cup of humiliation and retribution.

The changes which Lady Louisa witnessed in her own country— the result of advancing intelligence and scientific discoveries—are no less remarkable and much more satisfactory. The destruction of the old close system of parliamentary representation, and the substitution in its room of a system at once popular, equitable, and efficient; the abolition of the Corn Laws, and of the restrictions on trade and commerce, once regarded as the palladium of Britain’s prosperity, took place, while gas, steamships, railroads, telegraphs, and the penny post were all invented, or brought into general use after she was far advanced in life. Nowhere had more extensive and gratifying changes taken place during Lady Louisa’s lifetime than in her own beautiful and beloved Tweedside. The green pastoral hills and ’Tweed’s fair river, broad and deep,’ remained as they were, but all else was altered. Not only at the time of her birth, but after the first decade of the present century had closed, agriculture in Tweeddale, and indeed throughout Scotland, was at a very low ebb. In 1763 there were no enclosures, and almost no trees. The arable lands were cut up into small holdings, and the fields divided into patches by numerous ditches and swamps. Draining had never been tried; artificial manures had never been thought of; green crops and stall-feeding were unknown. Corn was raised only on the drier spots, and ploughing was effected by means of a huge, cumbrous machine, drawn by teams of from four to six horses, or twice as many oxen, driven by four or five men. The harness consisted mainly of plaited straw and ropes. Men frequently dragged the wooden harrows by means of ropes thrown over their shoulders. The crops were always scanty, and it was no uncommon occurrence for the grain to be cut down, and gathered in, amid frost and snow. Thrashing-mills were unknown at that time in Tweedside. There were no wheeled carts or carriages, or public conveyances of any kind, and, indeed, no proper roads. When Lady Louisa travelled in those days, it must have been always on horseback, and along rough bridle-paths.