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CUMBERLAND
RAVAGED BY THE SCOTS – THE DOUGLAS RAID – THE ENGLISH PREPARE TO MAKE
REPRISALS – A LARGE SOUTHERN ARMY ENTERS DUMFRIESSHIRE, AND ENCAMPS ON THE
BANKS OF THE SARK – BATTLE OF THE SARK, AND UTTER ROUT OF THE ENGLISH –
INCREASING AUDACITY OF DOUGLAS – HIS IMPOSING JOURNEY TO ROME – OPPRESSIVE
CONDUCT OF HIS SUBORDINATES – A FINE LEVIED ON HIS CHIEF REPRESENTATIVE –
THE ROYAL COMMISSIONER TRIES TO EXACT THE FINE IN NITHSDALE BY FORCE, AND
IS COMPELLED TO RETREAT – KING JAMES ENFORCES HIS AUTHORITY IN THE
DISTRICT – DOUGLAS, IN RETURNING HOMEWARDS, HEARS OF THE ROYAL VISIT TO
HIS DOMAINS, VOWS VENGANCE, BUT POLITICALLY SMOTHERS HIS RESENTMENT – HE
RECEIVES THE KING’S FORGIVENESS – ENTERS INTO A TREASONABLE ALLIANCE WITH
OTHER LORDS – INSTANCES OF THE EARL’S CRUELTY AND TYRANNY – HE IS DECOYED
TO STIRLING CASTLE, CARESSED AND FETED BY KING JAMES, AND THEN BASELY
STABBED BY THE ENRAGED MONARCH, BECAUSE HE REFUSES TO BREAK THE REBELLIOUS
BOND INTO WHICH HE HAD ENTERED – JAMES, NINTH EARL OF DOUGLAS, REBELS
AGAINST THE KING – SOME OF THE DUMFRIESSHIRE BARONS TAKE ARMS AGAINST
DOUGLAS – HIS THOROUGH DEFEAT AT THE BATTLE OF ARKINHOLM – HE AND ALBANY
ENTER INTO AN ALLIANCE WITH KING HENRY OF ENGLAND, AND INVADE
DUMFRIESSHIRE AT THE HEAD OF AN ENGLISH ARMY – THE INVADERS ARE ROUTED AT
LOCHMABEN, AND DOUGLAS IS MADE PRISONER – FALL OF THE HOUSE OF DOUGLAS.
AFTER the
burning of Alnwick, a truce for seven years was agreed upon between the
two kingdoms; but, owing to the commotions in both, resulting from the
weakness of their respective Governments, it was soon broken, the English
in this instance being the aggressors. A large body of them, under the
command of the younger Percy, son of the Earl of Northumberland, made an
incursion into Annandale, burning several villages, and carrying off all
the goods they could lay hands upon. Luckily, Douglas was not far distant
from the post of duty and danger. Falling upon the retiring Southrons, he
made them accelerate their retreat, and yield up all the spoil with which
they were burdened. So far, so well; but Douglas, for reasons of his own,
wished to widen the area of the war-field, in order to counteract the
coalition formed against him by King James, now aged seventeen, the
questionable Crichton, and Kennedy, the patriotic Bishop of St. Andrews.
He therefore mustered a large army, and, under the plea of revenging a
wrong for which he had already exacted a heavy penalty, entered
Cumberland. Not contented with imposing upon it an ordinary amount of
punishment, he acted with such merciless severity that it was reduced to
the condition of a desert. Not only the barons on the English side of the
Border, but the whole nation, felt aggrieved and indignant on account of
this ferocious Douglas raid: forgetting how often Dumfriesshire had been
gratuitously pillaged by them, and that for one complaint against the
Scots, the latter could have preferred fifty against those who were loudly
crying for vengeance, and busy preparing to exact it with their might.
Early in
1449, an army, that has been variously estimated at from 14,000 to 40,000,
entered the County by the ordinary passage, and encamped on the banks of
the Sark – the little stream that, after forming the boundary line between
the kingdoms for a few miles, flows into the Solway. The force, which
probably did not exceed 20,000 men in number, was commanded by the Earl of
Northumberland and his son, the later anxious to wipe out the disgrace of
his defeat in the preceding year. Not encountering any opposition, the
invaders began forthwith to pillage and destroy. Whilst so employed, news
was brought by their scouts that a Scottish army was advancing, as if for
the purpose of giving them battle- information which proved strictly
correct, the force from the north being about 12,000 strong, under the
leadership of Douglas’s brother, George, Earl of Ormond. The conflict that
ensued was, says Chalmers, “one of the greatest fought between two
spirited nations, from the engagement at Homildon, in 1402, till the
battle fought in Dumfriesshire since the formation of the Scottish
monarchy.
As the
Scots drew near, the English recalled their marauding parties, and
prepared for the threatened encounter. They had the advantage of choosing
their own ground; and, having selected what seemed to be a favouable spot,
adjoining their tents, they calmly waited the coming onset. The centre was
commanded by the two Percys; the right by one whose valour, bodily
strength, and implacable hatred of the Scots, gained for him that
distinction – a warrior whom the chroniclers of the period call Magnus
Redbeard; while the left, composed chiefly of Welshmen, was entrusted to
Sir John Pennington. [Pitscottie.] The centre of Ormond’s force was
directed by himself; Herbert, the first Lord Maxwell of Carlaverock [He
was twice married: first to a daughter of Sir Herbert Herries of
Terregles, by whom he had two sons, Robert, second Lord Maxwell, and Sir
Edward Maxwell, from the latter of whom are descended the Maxwells of
Linwood and Monteith; and secondly to a daughter of Sir William Seton of
Seton, by whom he had, with other issue, George, ancestor of the Maxwells
of Carnsalloch, and Adam, of the Maxwells of Southbar.], and Sir Adam
Johnstone of Lochwood, led the right wing, in opposition to Sir John
Pennington; while Wallace of Craigie, a lineal descendant of the great
patriot, conducted the left against the redoubtable Magnus.
Ormond,
we are told, delivered a spirited address to his countrymen, based chiefly
on the idea that “thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just.” He
prudently said nothing about his brother’s excesses, but dwelt strongly on
the fact that the guilt of first breaking the truce lay with their old
enemies the English. Justice was on the side of his countrymen; and they
might therefore, he said, expect victory to smile upon their efforts. They
had their homes to protect, their country’s honour to maintain –
considerations which ought to stimulate their valour; and then, if success
crowned their bravery, they would cover themselves with glory, and
purchase a lengthened peace for the district and the nation. If the leader
of the invaders said anything to them, the burden of it would doubtless be
revenge for the cruel Douglas raid; but he either was silent, wishing to
speak by deeds, and not by words, or there was no reporter in the camp to
take down his eloquent address, or chronicler to put one into his mouth
worthy of the occasion.
As usual,
most of the Scots were armed with the national weapon – a pike or spear –
the length of which was fixed by Parliament at six ells, or eighteen feet
six inches. A phalanx so armed was all but invincible. “Standing at
defence,” says the author of the “Journal of Somerset’s Expedition,” “they
thrust shoulders likewise so nigh together, the fore ranks well nigh
kneeling stoop low before, their fellows behind holding their pikes with
both hands, and therewith in their left their bucklers, the one end of
their pike against their right foot, and the other against the enemy,
breast high, their followers crossing their pike’s point with them
forward; and thus each with other so nigh as space and place will suffer,
through the whole ward, so thick, that as easily shall a bare finger
pierce through the skin of an angry hedgehog as any encounter the front of
their pikes.”
Had the
Scots at Sark been on the defensive, and attacked hand to hand by the
enemy, the pikes would have vindicated the truth of the national motto, as
they had often done on former fields: but when Wallace of Craigie
marshaled his spearmen, there was no foe within reach; and a shower of
missiles was rained down upon them from a distant eminence with
irresistible effect. In this ominous way the battle was initiated, and
seemed almost on the point of being decided against the Scots. Great gaps
were formed in their left wing, which wavered in consequence, and appeared
on the verge of being thrown into inextricable confusion – the sure
prelude of a general panic and flight.
It is at
a crisis such as this that generalship is invaluable. Wallace possessed
military genius worthy of his great ancestor: he apprehended at once the
full import of the danger in which, not only his own division, but the
whole army, was placed; and he was not slow in devising relief. Addressing
his soldiers, he said, “Why do we stand for thus, to be wounded afar off?
Follow me, and let us join in hand-strokes, where true valour is only to
be seen!” His men were reanimated by this appeal. They had not the passive
endurance to enable them to stand much longer the arrow flights that were
drinking their hearts’ blood; but they had courage sufficient to assail a
host, however numerous or strongly posted.
The
leader’s words were followed by corresponding action. What avail bow and
arrow to the gallant English archers, who had so nearly decided the day,
now that two thousand Scottish spearmen have crossed the intervening
ground, and are grappling in close quarters with their assailants! Magnus
the Redbearded stands aghast as he sees his ranks thinned and reeling.
Why, when the right wing is decimated and threatened with total ruin, does
no supporting force come to it from the centre? Whether it was that the
nature of the ground forbade such a movement, or that Northumberland was
so engaged in baffling Ormond that he had no men to spare, certain it is
the leader of the English right found, to his dismay, that it was doomed
to fight and suffer unaided. If the prowess of an individual could have
redeemed the fortunes of the field, the superhuman exertions made by
Magnus would have accomplished that result. He could not revive the
courage of his followers, nor arrest the merciless march of their
assailants; but he could die in harness like a dauntless warrior as he
was. Surrounded by a few personal adherents, he kept his ground, nay,
actually advanced in face of that bristling forest of spears, anxious, it
is supposed, to engage in a personal combat with the Scottish chief – a
fate which was not vouchsafed to him, as he fell, by some unknown hand,
among heaps of slain.
The
overthrow of the right division of the English might not in itself have
led to their entire defeat; but when that disaster was followed by the
death of Magnus, and both events became known over the entire army, a sore
discouragement was the result. It would seem that the fighting on other
parts of the field was mere child’s play, as compared with that in which
the divisions led by Magnus and Wallace were engaged. The English fully
anticipated that their archers would decide the battle in their favour;
and being disappointed in this respect, they appear to have lost heart. At
all events, they made no adequate effort, in the centre and left, to atone
for the loss of the right division and its leader. They fought on
doggedly, however, for a while – hopeless of success, yet loath to retire
– till, pressed on all sides by the impetuous and exulting enemy, they at
length gave way along their whole line. When the general retreat took
place, the slaughter in their ranks was terrific. Three thousand of their
numbers fell whilst the battle raged, and more than that number perished
by the sword of the pursuer, or in the blood-dyed waters of the Sark, on
whose banks they had the day before indulged in merry wassail. The Sark,
as has been mentioned, is only a small river, but the retreating English
found it swollen by the tide, and rushing fierce, like the conquering
Scots, as if the latter had been in league with the Solway against the
enemies of their nation.
Many men
of rank, including the younger Percy and Sir John Pennington, were made
prisoners, together with hundreds of gentlemen and common soldiers.
According to Buchanan, the spoil in money, arms, and equipments that
rewarded the victors “was greater than ever had been known in any former
battle;” and a tradition, still current in the locality, tells of fabulous
heaps of gold pieces being found by fortunate rustics on the banks of the
Sark, generations after their luckless owners perished by flood or field.
In this memorable battle the Scots lost only six hundred men, in addition
to the wounded, who may be estimated at three times that number. There
was, however, on sad drawback to their triumph – the brave Wallace of
Craigie, to whose skill it was chiefly due, having died three months
afterwards of wound he received during the heat of the conflict. [The
authorities relied on for the account given of this battle are chiefly
Pitscottie and Buchanan.]
A truce
was concluded, which lasted for several years; but Dumfriesshire, though
freed for a lengthened period from the presence of a foreign enemy,
continued to be distracted by its own barons – and Douglas was still the
chief offender. Actuated by a variety of motives, the chief of which was
probably a love of display, the proud Lord, with a most imposing retinue,
visited the city of Rome, proceeding through Flanders and France into
Italy. Sir John Douglas, Lord Balveny, was left to act as his procurator
or representative [Pitscottie, folio edition, p. 34.], a post which was no
sinecure; and its difficulties were aggravated by the increased
licentiousness shown by many retainers during the absence of their chief,
he being the only one able to restrain them, when he chose so to act.
Complaints of their tyranny and oppression were daily poured into the
King’s ear; and Balveny himself was murmured against, as one who
encouraged rather than checked the offenders. On the procurator being
summoned to appear in Edinburgh, and plead to the charges brought against
him, he, imitating his haughty master, despised the citation till he was
taken thither by force. He underwent a regular trial; and it having been
proved to the satisfaction of his judges that certain acts of extortion
had been committed by himself and others in the name of Earl Douglas,
heavy fines in money were imposed as a penalty – the same to be paid out
of the Earl’s rents. Balveny, protesting that he durst not interfere with
the revenue of his chief, prayed that the fines might be allowed to stand
over till the Earl’s arrival, who was expected to return in the course of
a few months. This evasive proposal did not satisfy King James, who,
though wishing to be lenient, was resolved not to be trifled with; and he
commissioned Sinclair, Earl of Orkney, to take means for collecting such
an amount from the rents of the Douglas estates as should discharge the
damages adjudged by law.
Easier
said than done. A king gave the order; but barons, who acted in the name
and according to the spirit of one who was mightier in Galloway and
Dumfriesshire than himself, treated it with scorn. The very idea of the
thing was laughed at by the relatives and dependents of Douglas. To be
mulcted in their own district by a royal commissioner – and that as a
punishment for deeds they gloried in – was totally out of question; and
when Sinclair, “accompanied with a small number of folks,” made his
appearance in Nithsdale as a penal rent collector, he was received with
such a storm of ridicule that he was fain to hurry northward without
obtaining a plack of the damages. James, enraged by the contempt thus
poured on his authority, summoned “by a herald all men whatsoever, of high
or low degree, pertaining or favouring a Douglas to underly the law,” and
declaring all disobeyers to be rebels and traitors. [Piscottie, p. 34.]
No
response having been made to this comprehensive summons, the King found
there was no alternative left him but to give up his sovereignty over a
great part of the south of Scotland, or enforce it by the sword. He
resolved to adopt the latter course; and, putting himself at the head of a
considerable army, he marched into Galloway to break the power which had
defied him - “to beard the lion in his den – the Douglas in his hold.” He
encountered no opposition in the open field, the enemy he came to punish
having prudently retired to their places of strength, which they defended
with such valour that those who followed to assail them were “very
contumeliously repulsed.” [Pitscottie, p. 35.] When a portion of the
royalists entered Annandale, they were dealt with in a similar fashion.
The fortresses of Thrieve and Lochmaben, and other lesser strongholds,
displayed each a rebel flag; and the King, unable to capture them by
storm, had to subject them to a regular siege, which proved in most
instances successful: after which result, the royal authority was –
nominally at least – re-established in the district.
Even in
his hour of triumph, the King tempered justice with mercy. No frowning
gibbet, with its human “tassel,” rose to glut judicial vengeance: all he
required was submission, and the money penalty originally imposed. The
former was no longer refused, and the latter was promised in full, and
partially paid. Well content with having humbled the haughty Douglasses,
and, as he thought, taught them a lesson in loyalty, the King broke up his
army, and returned to Edinburgh.
It may
readily be conceived, that when the news of what had occurred in Nithsdale
reached Douglas at Rome, he was overwhelmed by rage and shame. Whilst
basking in the sunbeams of the Papal Court, “the observed of all
observers,” to have his ancestral domains despoiled and his family
degraded, was indeed mortifying to his proud mind; and, as he hastened
homeward, schemes of “vaulting ambition,” rife with vengeance against his
sovereign, would doubtless occupy his thoughts and give a colour to his
dreams. But as he passed through England on his way, he learned that King
James had so consolidated his regal authority that it could not be any
longer safely defied, even by a Douglas. Smothering his resentment, he, on
reaching the Border, sent his brother James in advance to sound the
disposition of the King towards him, which was found to be conciliatory.
On
presenting himself at Court, he was received not as an enemy, but as a
friend – treatment he did not look for, which soothed his wounded spirit,
and made him, for the time being, one of his Majesty’s most loyal
subjects. The King, indeed, acted toward Douglas with an excess of
tenderness, as if desirous of melting him with kindness rather than of
crushing him with the rigour he had provoked. The incensed monarch and the
turbulent baron became like sworn brothers to each other. “The Earl,” says
Pitscottie, “was received right heartfully by the King, and was remitted
of all things bygone: wherefore he promised faithfully to rule all things
within his bounds at the King’s command and pleasure; and then he received
all fortalices and strengths again out of the hands of the King’s men of
war; and thereafter was holden in such great estimation and favour by the
King, that he was made lieutenant-general of the kingdom. [Pitscottie, p.
35.]
How sad
to find the Earl of Douglas, a few months afterwards, intriguing
personally with the King of England, and justly exciting the suspicions of
the sovereign from whom he was receiving so many favours. James was
naturally indignant at such conduct on the part of Douglas; but the
placable monarch once more extended his forgiveness to the offending
noble, though he removed him the lord-lieutenantcy, and entrusted the
administration of affairs to Sir William Crichton and the Earl of Orkney.
Douglas was more offended by what he had lost than gratified by what he
had regained. There was an old feud between him and Crichton, which the
elevation of the latter caused to flame up afresh. Douglas hated his
successful rival: and no love was lost between them; Crichton, enjoying
the royal sunshine, being in no ways disposed to help his enemy out of the
shade.
The
ambitious and infatuated Earl had been more than suspected, half a year
before, of treasonable tamperings with England: he now openly entered into
a league with the Earls of Crawford, Ross, and Murray, to overthrow the
King’s ministers – ay, and if need be for that end, to dethrone the King
himself. Whilst his Majesty was highly exasperated at this combination,
fresh causes of offence were given by Douglas, which called aloud for
punishment; the chief of these being his treatment of Sir John Herries of
Terregles and M’Lellan of Bombie, who he put to death – hanging the
former, and beheading the latter – because they were not sufficiently
submissive to his rule.
James
II., now aged twenty-one, had acquired increased energy with his years.
Fully prepared for the pending emergency, he resolved once more to try
fair means with his contumacious subject; and should these fail, to crush
him, and be truly king. The result is well known. Douglas, placated by a
conciliatory letter from his sovereign, visited the Court at Stirling,
and, after being luxuriously banqueted, was summoned to a private chamber
by his royal master, and there required to break the convenant entered
into between him and other nobles. The Earl gave an evasive answer; but
the King was not to be trifled with, and pressed the question: upon with
Douglas, after saying he must first consult his associates, emphatically
refused to comply with the King’s demand. James, losing all self-control,
then exclaimed, “If thou wilt not break the bond, this shall!” plunged a
dagger into the heart of Douglas, and some of the royal attendants who
rushed in completed the deed of slaughter. [In an Edinburgh newspaper of
14th October, 1797, there is the subjoined paragraph: “On
Thursday se’nnight, as some masons were digging a foundation in Stirling
Castle, in a garden adjacent to the magazine, they struck upon a human
skeleton, about eight yards from the window where the Earl of Douglas was
thrown after he was stabbed by King James II. It is thought, and there is
little doubt but what it is his remains, as it is certain that he was
buried in that garden, and but a little distance from the closet window.”]
Thus perished, in his prime and pride, William, the eighth Earl of
Douglas. Rebellious and tyrannical though he was, his assassination by the
King is utterly indefensible, and is a dark blot on the reputation of that
prince. The atrocious deed was no more premeditated by him that the
slaughter of Comyn at Dumfries by his royal ancestor; but that he should
have allowed himself to be betrayed by passion into the perpetration of
such a crime, aggravated by the breach of his work, and of the sacred
right of hospitality, is truly deplorable.
Though
the eighth Earl of Douglas involved Dumfriesshire in a “sea of troubles,”
his death did not purchase tranquility. James, brother of the slaughtered
nobleman, and ninth Earl of Douglas, took up arms to avenge his death; and
the strife which ensued involved not the district merely, but the kingdom.
It continued for upwards of two years; and, during its course, it was at
times uncertain whether the Stewarts or the Douglasses should reign in
Scotland. The general current of the contest need not be traced; and,
confining our attention chiefly to its course in Dumfriesshire, let us
state that the King, about eleven months after the outbreak of the
rebellion, led a large army into the country, in order to punish Douglas
in the chief seat of his power and pride. Being winter, however, he could
not carry out his design effectually. “He burnt the corns and houses,
herried the countries, and slew some spies” [Pitscottie, p. 35.]; and, in
spring, sent his troops back to renew the destructive warfare. Annandale
became the chief theatre of hostilities. In that district Douglas,
notwithstanding numerous reverses, was still lord and king: but other
parts of Dumfriesshire boldly disavowed his rule; for which act of
independence and loyalty they were much harassed by his three brothers,
the Earl of Murray, the Earl of Ormond, and Lord Balveny. Highly imprudent
it was for these noblemen to inflame still further in this way the
resentment of barons who would rather have served both Douglas and King
James, had the conduct of the former not rendered that impossible. It was
a bad day for this domineering family when they arrayed against them the
chiefs of a County over which they had long exercised an unrivalled sway,
and many of whom were of their own kith and kin. “A house divided against
itself cannot stand.”
On the 1st
of May, 1455, the ground now occupied by the town of Langholm, in Eskdale,
was the scene of an engagement which sealed the doom of the house of
Douglas. The three noblemen named above led one party of the belligerents,
who were confronted by the men of the County, headed by Maxwell,
Johnstone, Scott, Carlyle [This was William, Lord of Torthorwald. He
presented a bell to the Parish Church of Dumfries, inscribed thus:
“Guilielmus de Carleil, Dom. De Torthorwald, me sicut fecit fiere in
honorem Sancti Michaelis. Ann. Dom. MCCCCXXXIII.” “William de Carlyle,
Lord of Torthorwald, caused me to be made in honour of St. Michael. The
year of our Lord, 1433.” This bell still survives. It hangs on the
bartizan of the Mid Steeple, and was, down till about ten years ago,
employed in the secular duty of warning the lieges when fires broke out in
the Burgh.], and other chiefs. A brief sanguinary battle resulted in the
utter rout of the Douglasses. Archibald, Earl of Murray, was slain, and
his head sent as a trophy to King James; Hugh, Earl of Ormond, was taken
prisoner, tried for treason, and executed: and John, Lord Balveny, fled to
the Earl, his brother, in England. Those who were chiefly instrumental in
freeing Dumfriesshire from the rule of this imperious family, were
liberally rewarded for their services. Johnstone and Carlyle obtained a
grant of the forty-pound land of Pittenain, in Clydesdale; Sir Walter
Scott acquired the lands of Abington, Phareholm, and Glengoner, in the
same district – thus making broader and deeper the basis of the noble
house of Buccleuch; while the Maxwells and Beatties were not overlooked.
In the following year an act of Parliament completed what the sword at
Arkinholm had begun.
It
attainted the Douglasses – deprived of their rank and estates by one fell
swoop – their lordships of Eskdale and Galloway becoming the property of
the Crown, and Annandale, with its appendant Castle of Lochmaben, being
granted by King James to his second son, Alexander, whom he created Earl
of March, Lord of Annandale, and Duke of Albany. It was not, however, till
the King marched with an army into Galloway, that that province
acknowledged the royal authority, and the Castle of Thrieve submitted to
receive a royal garrison. Another fortress of the family, Lochrutton
Castle, was placed in the keeping of Herries of Terregles, son of the
loyal chief whom the eighth Lord of Douglas hanged like a felon, for the
crime of being loyal to his sovereign. The exiled and disinherited Earl
made repeated attempts to redeem his fortunes. In 1456 we find him
undertaking a foray into Berwickshire, encountered and defeated by one of
his own blood, George, Earl of Angus, descended from William, first Earl
of Douglas, by his third wife, Margaret, Countess of Angus – which
overthrow gave rise to a popular saying, founded on the different
complexions of the two branches of the family, that “the Red Douglas had
put down the Black.”
Before he
comes again prominently on the scene, James II. is killed by the bursting
of a cannon employed in the siege of Roxburgh Castle, which had been held
by the English since the battle of Durham; and his son James, a boy who
had just seen seven summers, ascends the throne. It is not till July,
1484, twenty-four years after the latter event, that James, ninth and last
Earl of Douglas, is seen engaged in another enterprise, with the view of
blotting out the sentence written against him in the records of Parliament
and the book of fate. Alexander, Duke of Albany, the late King’s second
son, and brother of the present sovereign, had long been inflamed by
guilty ambition; and, fancying that, with the help of Douglas and the King
of England, he might make a successful stroke for the throne, he entered
into a negotiation with the expatriated nobleman, the result of which was
their joint invasion of Dumfriesshire with an English army. The
arrangement was of this nature: in the event of success, Albany to become
King of Scotland, acknowledging Henry of England as his superior; Douglas
to receive back his rank and estates. Once more the smaller proprietors of
the County saved it and the nation from ruinous disaster. Dreading the
restoration of a family whom they had good reason to dislike, and
devotedly loyal to the throne, they turned out in great force when
summoned by the signal fires which announced the approach of an enemy. The
Master of Maxwell, Johnstone of Johnstone, Murray of Cockpool, Chrichton
of Sanquhar, Carruthers of Holmains, and Charteris of Amisfield, were the
principal leaders of the Dumfrisians, as they proceeded in the direction
of Lochmaben, again to cope with their old enemies the English, and their
old oppressor the Earl of Douglas.
The
invader supposed that, as soon as they appeared, many of the country
people, lured by hopes of pillage, would join them. In this expedition
they were disappointed; but they expected, at all events, to succeed in
doing a little in the way of plunder on their own account. Actuated by
this motive, they prepared to make a ravenous descent on the rich wares
exposed for sale in the streets of Bruce’s ancient burgh during the fair
held on the 22nd of July, St. Magdalen’s Day. This scheme was
equally abortive. The patriotic men of the County were there before them,
to defend things small and great – the movables of the market – the
permanent institutions of the kingdom; and had they not, by fighting
heroically, rolled back the aggressive tide, the deluge of a destructive
revolution would have swept over the land, engulfing perhaps the monarchy
in its waters. An obstinate conflict took place. It commenced early in the
forenoon; and when the summer’s sun sank, victory still hung in the
balance. The clouds of night that gathered above failed to separate the
combatants; but, long before the early dawn of another day, Albany,
thoroughly beaten, was on the south side of the Border, with his back to
Scotland – the remnant of his routed followers accompanying him; and
Douglas was a captive. [Acts of Parliament of Scotland, vol. ii., p. 173.]
The veteran warrior was struck from his horse towards the close of the
fight, and might have been trampled to death in the tumult, had not one of
his owl vassals, Kirkpatrick of Ross, stepped forward and claimed him as a
prisoner. [Actæ Domin. Councilii, 19th January, 1484. The
barony of Ross, in Mid-Annandale, was held by a branch of the Kirkpatricks
at a very early period. On 22nd April, 1372, William
Kirkpatrick of Ross granted a charter to John of Garroch of the two-merk
land of Glengys (on the west side of the water of Wamphray), and
Galvilgil. – Writs of the
Carlyle Family.] The victors were liberally rewarded by their
grateful sovereign – one of them, Sir Robert Crichton, being created a
peer, under the title of Lord Sanquhar.
It is
said that Kirkpatrick, stirred by a lingering love for his former chief,
offered to set him at liberty, and that Douglas despairingly declined the
offer, as if impressed with the feeling that his game of guilty ambition
was fully played out, and irretrievably lost. When the distinguished
captive was carried before King James, actuated by shame – perhaps by
pride, or a mixture of both – he turned his back upon royalty; and when,
instead of being sent to the scaffold, as his crimes merited, he was
sentenced to confinement for life in the Monastery of Lindores, he
muttered despondingly, “He who may no better, must needs turn monk.”
(Hawthornden, Hist., p. 150; and Hume, p. 381.] In this inglorious way the
proud earldom which had existed for ninety-eight years (an average of only
eleven years to each possessor of the title), and the noblest branch of
the lofty line of Douglas, became extinct.
Some few
of its members were, as we have seen, virtuous as well as brave. Its
chiefs, with perhaps one exception, were intellectually great; and several
of them were highly accomplished, considering the age in which they lived.
Ambition, “the last infirmity of noble minds,” was, however, the besetting
sin of the family. Dumfriesshire, for a century, was so mixed up with
their fortunes, that the history of the one during that period is almost
the history of the other. Had the talents and influence of the Douglasses
been always wisely directed, what a blessing they would have been to their
native district and to the kingdom! We like to dwell on their indomitable
valour, their military genius, their magnificent hospitality; but the
tendency to yield them hero-worship is kept in check, when we reflect upon
the wicked uses to which their natural gifts and power were often turned.
None of the earls, except the stainless warrior who, though dead,
conquered at Otterburn, was worthy of the epithet “good,” which their
progenitor, Sir James, acquired. Speaking of them generally, they were
mighty men of war, indifferent landlords, and bad subjects. Heavy
penalties some of them paid; but punishment brought no reformation. The
lessons taught by adversity were despised; and now we see the haughty
house, that would not be curbed or counselled, utterly overthrown. |
