PREFACE

The object of the following pages is to bring to light many documents which have preserved interesting particulars relating to the History of Scotland, and which, being now scattered through extensive collections abroad, are accessible to very few persons.

The documents here introduced illustrate the diplomatic negotiations between Scotland and France in 1418 and the following years, which ended in the landing of Scottish troops in France, and prove that this intervention was effected on a larger scale than has been supposed by our historians; while a glance at the “Muster Rolls” will show that the contingents sent to France were composed of the flower of Scottish families.

The greater number of them were never to see Scotland again. The account of the long war in France from 1418 to 1444, in which so many thousands of them perished, is traced with as much detail as could be found in old contemporary chronicles, some of which have recently been discovered, and they fully justify the solemn declaration of Louis XII., that the institution of the celebrated companies of ’Scots Men-at-arms and Scots Life-guards“ was an acknowledgment of the service the Scots rendered to Charles VII. in reducing France to his obedience, and of the great loyalty and virtue he found in them.

The history of those two companies in the following reigns is not less interesting. From first to last, the Scots Men-at-arms, whom Francis I. used to call “the arm that bears my sceptre,” affords an unparalleled example in European military annals of a corps lasting uninterruptedly for 380 years without material transformation as to organisation and military service. “Under the title of Scots Men-at-arms,” says General Susanne, “one might write the history of the wars waged by France from the days of Joan of Arc to the Revolution.”

The Scots Guards were at the head of the French army in all the great battles fought under the monarchy, and for nearly 300 years the Kings of France were guarded by them. They became famous for their unswerving fidelity; and what a minister of Louis XII. said of them a hundred years after their institution, that “ there had never been one of them found to have committed any fault against the kings or their state,” was proclaimed again, a century later, by Henry IV., when he granted them new privileges, “whereof they had rendered themselves worthy through the affection and fidelity which they had borne the crown of France.”

With the aid of the “Muster Rolls,” which are here published for the first time, and which extend over a period of nearly 400 years, many Scottish families will be able in future to distinguish the names of their ancestors who were actors in the great military achievements of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.

The “Notes and Illustrations” will be found to contain some interesting documents hitherto unknown on the diplomatic negotiations between Scotland and France in the reign of James I., on the “ Battle of Baugd,” and on the date of the institution of the Scots Guards. In 1645 the first English Revolution gave rise to a large emigration of royalists, affording materials for the formation of Scottish regiments, to which others were added after the execution of Charles I. A long account of these is given in the “Notes and Illustrations.” In the “List of Estates possessed by the Scots Guards in France,” the names and titles thus brought together will show how thoroughly France has been impregnated with good Scottish blood.

The present records are chiefly based upon the following authorities: contemporary Chronicles and Memoirs, State Papers and Manuscripts in the Public Records Office, and chiefly in the Archives and in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, and other collections.

The editor acknowledges, with thanks, the communications and assistance rendered him by Major H. de Grandmaison, who has taken much generous trouble in the production of this history; M. Francisque-Michel, and the late Dr David Laing. His thanks are also due to the Rev. J. T. Walford, S. J., for revising and passing the volumes through the press.

Note: Whilst this work was in the press, the first volume of M. de Beaucourt’s remarkable History of Charles VII. was published. It contains many interesting documents on this period of Scottish history, the substance of which will be found in the “Notes and Illustrations,” vol. ii., p. 197.

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